So, were all feeling a
lot better, right? Its shaping up to be an OK year, maybe even a
good or great year -- certainly a welcome relief after 2002 and
2003. But were survivors, right? So we can ignore the voices,
right?
You know the
voices. They keep pointing out that, ultimately, we have less
control over our businesses than we once thought. No matter how
smart we were, we couldnt keep from backsliding in the face of
terrorism, a bad economy, SARS and war. And the voices suggest that
were only doing well in 2004 because were riding a good cycle up,
just as we rode a bad cycle down.
I met a man who
doesnt hear the voices. He sits on the fulcrum as the cycles seesaw
around him, good and bad, good and bad. Hes in the travel industry,
but it doesnt seem to matter very much how everybody else is doing
-- the last three years were good, and this year looks even
better.
The man with the
fixed smile is Surjit Babra, chairman and president of the Skylink
Group. He started the $500 million company 25 years ago at the age
of 19 with $3,000 of his own money.
Most travel agents
know Skylink Travel as a long-lived air consolidator in a segment
that is notorious for sudden deaths. It also compiled 18,000
negotiated hotel rates for agents and announced two weeks ago that
it was becoming a tour operator, offering escorted tours and
packages to Europe, the Far East, the South Pacific and southern
Africa.
Less known to the
industry is the Skylink Groups other division, Skylink Aviation.
Its the one that provides the balance to the Travel
group.
Skylink Aviation
leases airplane and helicopter services to the United Nations and
individual governments (the U.S. among them) for relief operations
and troop transport. It ferries U.N. peacekeepers, drops food over
Kosovo and Afghanistan and brings relief supplies to
Angola.
When there is
trouble in the world, the travel business goes down and the
aviation division goes up, Babra said. And, occasionally, in a year
like 2004, the laws of gravity are defied and both sides of the
seesaw rise.
Babra does not
suggest that his business has grown without its share of
setbacks.
On my wall is my
degree from the University of Skylink, he said. I have a running
total of mistakes I have made and how much they have cost me. So
far, Im up to $16 million.
The common link in
all my mistakes was that I made quick, emotional decisions, he
said, which explains why he waited until 2004 before deciding to
launch a Web site, www.skylinkholidaysusa.com. I decided to wait
until the dust settled around the Web, and it was very clear what
to do.
The Web site is
also his first move into consumer-direct marketing, although he
points out that there is level-field pricing for products sold
through travel agents.
Its not for
everyone, but opening a disaster-relief branch would seem the
perfect complement to any travel business. And if you could further
specialize in disaster relief to travel companies, at last youd
have found the ultimate hedge.
And the voices
would go away.
A further word (well never hear the
final word) on home agents. In reaction to my column On the bubble (Aug. 2), Tom Ogg wrote last week in a
Travel Weekly Forum (see "Trouble with 'On the bubble' ") that, contrary to my
assertion that Vacation.com culls low-producing agencies from its
rolls, home agents make up almost 20% of V.coms total
membership.
I asked V.com
President Dick Knodt for clarification. The number of home agents
we have is a mysterious thing to get at, he replied. He guessed
about 10% of his member agencies do some kind of hosting, but how
many home agents they host is impossible to know.