Adopting parent discovers a niche

If you need proof that businesses can do well by doing good, consider the case of William Goldstein, founder and chairman of Travel-On in Beltsville, Md.

A 32-year industry veteran, Goldstein has seen his company grow from its earliest days of issuing paper tickets in 11 brick-and-mortar offices to its present incarnation as a 45-person, 14,000-square-foot office more suited to todays electronic age.

But it was a journey of a more personal nature that brought Goldstein to the niche business of which he is most proud.

Back in 2000, I became interested in adoption, and one of my friends told me about Kidsave, a nonprofit organization that matches older children with host parents for a six-week Summer Miracle program, he said.

Children are brought in from countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan, Columbia and Peru to destinations throughout the U.S. for the summer. Many of the children end up being adopted by the host family.

Goldstein adopted a 9-year-old boy named Serge through Kidsave in a process that involved flying to Russia for a court appearance and visiting the orphanage where the child was living.

When I was at the orphanage I found out that Serge had a best buddy who had not been selected to come on the Summer Miracles program, Goldstein said.

Eleven months later, Goldstein also adopted Constantine, Serges 8-year-old friend.

Goldsteins personal happy ending inspired him to help adopting parents navigate the intricacies of overseas travel, which, he said, can be prohibitively expensive for families who dont have his access to travel perks.

Kidsave knew I was in the travel business, and one of the co-founders told me that dealing with the airlines had become a nightmare, Goldstein said.

An opportunity presents itself

The Summer Miracles program had grown quite a bit,  from about 20 children per year to 250.

Not only were the logistics of transporting that many children complicated, but prospective parents who wanted to follow up with formal adoptions faced the daunting challenge of trying to arrange travel.

When you are adopting someone from overseas, there are so many external constraints that can affect your travel plans and prohibit you from using inexpensive air fares, Goldstein said.

For example, court dates are subject to change. Even when families have a specific arrival date, they may not know how long the process will take and when they and the child can fly back to the U.S.

In order to keep the dates flexible, parents were forced to pay full fare, Goldstein said, which added a financial burden to what was already an expensive process. Adoption fees and agency fees also are costly.

We realized we had to do something to help these parents, some of whom have to make two trips overseas, so we went to the carriers and negotiated highly discounted fares with very few restrictions, Goldstein said.

We are now in our sixth year, and we have been very successful not only in bringing orphans to various parts of the U.S. to the communities that host these children, but also helping the parents once they decide to adopt children, he said.

The agency now sends about 300 to 400 parents a year, and sometimes siblings, overseas to adopt children, Goldstein said.

The adopting-parent fares are available to anyone engaged in travel for the sole purpose of adopting, he said.

Every year, when we renegotiate our rates, we send a press release to adoption agencies letting them know that parents can use these fares, which are available on three international carriers, he said. The fares represent a significant savings, have no change fees and require no advance purchase or set days of travel.

While Goldstein takes satisfaction in his association with Kidsave -- he is now on the board of directors -- he stressed that any avocation can be turned into a rewarding niche.

Were not talking about the days when travel was a luxury: Everyone travels now, and if you look around you, there is potential to sell travel everywhere, he said. Nowadays, you can create your own affinity group, be it Boy Scouts, sports or religious affiliations, and negotiate group fares. The bottom line is to find a niche and go for it if you want to develop new business.

Think youre a good candidate for an upcoming Agent Life? Contact Felicity Long, Agent Life editor, at [email protected]. Include your agency name, agency location, telephone number and e-mail address in the message and put Agent Life in the subject line.

Perfect Itinerary

An orangutan adventure in Borneo

Irene Spencer, a San Diego-based Virtuoso travel agent with Protravel International, is an adventure travel specialist with more than 20 years of experience in the travel industry. She has visited 105 countries. The following is a portion of a Borneo tour that Spencer created in conjunction with the Orangutan Foundation International.

DAY 1

Upon arrival in Pangkalanbun, travelers are met by a tour escort with the Orangutan Foundation International and taken to the Blue Kecubung for lunch and a presentation by Birute Mary Galdikas, a naturalist and orangutan expert. The group continues on to Kumai Harbor at the edge of the vast Borneo interior for a two- to three-hour cruise among colorful birds and many species of primates. Travelers arrive at the Rimba Lodge in Kalimantan at dusk.

DAY 2

The group cruises upriver to Camp Leakey for a full day of exploration and encounters with Borneos wildlife. The day includes a tour of the camp and a talk by Galdikas, followed by an afternoon feeding of the orangutans. Participants cruise back to the Rimba Lodge at dusk.

DAY 3

The group leaves for Pondok Tanggui for the morning orangutan feeding and to see large communities of the rare proboscis monkey. Travelers continue on to Camp Leakey for a forest walk with Galdikas. The day includes an afternoon feeding of the orangutans and a late afternoon tea. Travelers return to the Rimba Lodge at dusk.

DAY 4

After breakfast, travelers stop at a local village, then embark on a sobering walk through an area that has been destroyed by deforestation and illegal logging. The group returns to Pangkalanbun by speedboat for a rare visit to the Orangutan Care Center and Facility to tour the medical and quarantine centers and see orangutan orphans in the nursery forest. Galdikas offers insights into the rehabilitation program and shares orangutan stories. Guests then head to the Blue Kechubung in Kalimantan for a farewell dinner and overnight stay.

DAY 5

The group returns to the nursery for a last visit before transferring to the airport for connecting flights to Jakarta, Indonesia. Upon arrival in Jakarta, the group is met by a representative and escorted to the Quality Inn Aspac Hotel for a day of leisure and a final overnight stay before the flight home.

The Perfect Itinerary is an example of an itinerary an agent crafted his or herself, not available anywhere else, but can be duplicated by other agents to sell to their clients. To send an example of an itinerary youve customized, e-mail to [email protected] with Perfect Itinerary in the subject line.

Hand In Hand

Creative agents use passports for marketing

While obtaining a passport may be a snap in New York or Los Angeles, the same is not necessarily true in the hinterlands, especially for people who arent comfortable filling out applications online.

Two travel agencies have made the process easier, thanks to an idea that won MLT Vacations monthly IRIS award, which recognizes the creative ideas of travel industry professionals.

Cindy Tyo-Browen, owner of Travel Travel in Fargo, N.D., came up with the concept of Passport Day, whereby clients could acquire or renew passports at her agency.

We had 67 walk-ins that day, and we sold about a dozen vacations, Tyo-Browen said.

Our customers were thrilled. They couldnt believe they could get it all done right here at the agency, and they didnt have to go stand in line downtown.

Tyo-Browen won the IRIS Award in July 2005, and the idea soon attracted the attention of Pam Postudensek, an outside agent for AAA in Grand Rapids, Minn.

Having read about the idea on WorldAgent Direct, the agent booking site for Northwest Airlines and MLT Vacations, Postudensek decided to offer complete passport processing as part of a travel show at the local shopping mall.

I knew this had potential in my area because the passport process is very time-consuming here, Postudensek said.

The event was a hit. About 400 people attended the two-day travel show, said Postudensek, and more than 200 passports were processed.

In addition, her agency booked several vacations on the spot and added dozens of names to their database. 

The IRIS Award was created to ensure travel agents great ideas and best practices are shared, said Ken Pomerantz, president and chief marketing officer for MLT Vacations. The entire industry benefits from an exchange of ideas, and were proud to support and encourage that exchange.

Hand in Hand highlights successful examples of agents and suppliers working together. Send suggestions to [email protected] with Hand in Hand in the subject line.

Agent Laugh

Can you believe it? ARC in a garage!

Taking a cue from work-at-home travel agents, the Airlines Reporting Corp. has decided to relocate from its suburban office in Arlington, Va., to the garage of ARC President David Collins. The move is to be carried out in phases beginning in December, when the current office lease expires. Collins Virginia residence has a three-car garage, and the ARC headquarters will occupy two-thirds of the space and a shed at the rear of the premises.

A spokesman said that, except for the shed, it will be accessible to the public. An ARC statement said the move was a natural step in the companys evolution as a customer-driven enterprise that values efficiency above all else.

In an interview with Travel Weekly, a tearful Collins muttered something about fuzzy slippers and denied that the move had been forced on the staff by the cost-cutting legacy airlines that dominate the ARC board.

In a follow-up conversation, he declined to put a number on how the move would further reduce ARCs transaction costs but confidently asserted, Its a no-brainer, really, as it will considerably reduce our overhead.

Collins also said the move was being driven in part by the airlines determination to eliminate paper in all phases of their business.

He pointed out that the operation of the new office would be drastically revised to harmonize with that effort and to build on ARCs success in moving travel agencies to paperless reporting, remitting and record retrieval. For ARC, that means a drastically reduced need for space to store paper and other conventional records.

Collins said, The relocated ARC headquarters will be a paperless office. No paper of any kind will be moved to the new facility, and all existing paper files at ARC will be digitized and stored on computer servers at a remote and secure location.

Most ARC employees will work from home, but those in the new office will not be issued Post-It notes on which to write passwords. Instead, they will be issued handheld wireless devices.

The move will also eliminate the need for pens, pencils, paper clips, staples, staple removers, binders, file folders, file cabinets, paper shredders, paper cutters, copy machines, printers and wastepaper baskets.

Letter openers will also be eliminated, as the office will not accept conventional mail or paper document delivery.

Based on a Travel Weekly drive-by with a wireless laptop, it appears ARC will be able to poach on the wireless Internet service of Collins next-door neighbor.

Also, the shed looks like a pretty nice shed.

This fictional news report was based on interviews and events that did not occur. The author has chosen to remain nameless, but you can contact him at [email protected].

Five Things

Little things that could mean a lot for your business

1. When you leave a tip at a restaurant or when you send in payment for your bills, include a business card, suggests Judy McKay, a former travel agent who now works as a motivational trainer and speaker through her company, Ideas Unlimited. Write thank you on the back of the card and sign your first name, she said. You will be surprised how many sales you will get by extending this courtesy.

2. Share travel tips with your clients. Tell them what three-letter code they should look for when they check their luggage, she said. TYS doesnt mean Knoxville, Tenn., to most people. Urge clients to put their cell number or a copy of their itinerary in their checked luggage, so that if it gets lost or picked up by someone else in error, the finder will be able to locate them. Any tips you share will add to the impression that you are the travel specialist and validate their choice in booking all their travel with you, said McKay.

3. Whenever selling a cruise or package, give copies of the brochure to your customer so they can give them to family and friends in case of emergency, she said. Write the ship-to-shore number or any applicable contact information on the brochure. In addition to providing a service to clients, the brochures may stimulate further bookings and referrals.

4. Attach a package of sugar-free gum to every itinerary that contains a flight. Even passengers who dont normally chew gum may find it relieves ear pain during take-off and landing, especially if they are traveling with children. You dont need to do something big or expensive to make a positive impact, McKay said.

5. Send out Happy Unbirthday cards to your clients with the note, You work hard. You deserve a vacation, McKay said. Make sure the word you is printed in bold and that your contact information is on the note. It is important to remind your clients that you are available to make their dream vacation a reality, she said.