FORT LAUDERDALE — Anyone trying to recruit new entrants into travel just needs to show a video from the "Travel: An Addictive Industry” panel at Travel Weekly’s CruiseWorld: Seven cruise line and hotel executives talking about the joys of working in travel.
Andy Stuart, executive vice president for Norwegian Cruise Line, said that at the gym in the morning, everyone wants to talk to the cruise guy. “Everyone wants to be part of this business,” he said. “I wake up the happiest guy every day.”
Chris Austin, vice president of global leisure and luxury sales for Starwood Hotels & Resorts, said being in travel is exciting because it’s about “making dreams come true.”
Dondra Ritzenthaler, Celebrity Cruises’ senior vice president of sales and trade support and services, said she was so “humbled and honored to be in travel.” So many people have jobs they don’t love, she said. “I genuinely, passionately love what I do. Not everyone is so lucky.”
“I view us all as MDs, memory doctors providing lifelong memories,” said Vicki Freed, senior vice president of sales and trade support and services for Royal Caribbean International.
The group had a variety of interesting first jobs, but Stuart topped them all. He had been a pheasant beater, beating bushes to drive pheasants out of the bushes and into the gun sights of hunters.
Ritzenthaler’s first job had been as a lifeguard. Freed had talked herself into a job at McDonald’s, but got fired because she had lied about her age.
Mark Kammerer, Holland America Line’s senior vice president of marketing and North America sales, started out mowing lawns at age 8. “I learned somebody can always find something wrong with your work. It prepared me perfectly for marketing.”
When Freed was working at an Ask Mr. Foster travel agency, she heard Carnival Cruise Lines’ Bob Dickinson speak.
“He made Carnival sound like an amazing company. It had the Mardi Gras and the Carnivale,” said Freed. “I thought, what a dynamic man. I thought, ‘I want to work for that man.’ I pestered him for six months before he hired me.”
Joni Rein, Carnival Cruise Lines’ vice president of worldwide sales, got into travel for love. She met her husband on a blind date and he lived in Florida. So off she went to Florida, becoming the third employee of Certified Vacations.
Ken Muskat, senior vice president of sales and marketing at MSC Cruises USA, papered Miami corporations with resumes after he got out of college. He wasn’t looking for travel, but Royal Caribbean called him to tell him about two positions — reservations and the entertainment department.
Muskat interviewed for both jobs. The marketing department liked that he had studied communications — they figured he could write newspaper ads for performers. Then he learned that part of the job including helping with auditions at Radio City Music Hall, with 400 women lined up outside.
“That was it,” he said. He started in entertainment.
Kammerer fell in love with travel as a child, watching his grandfather’s slide shows of African safaris — “before it was hip.” But he started his career working for Pillsbury selling cookies, “one of my favorite foods.”
But at a certain point, he began to wonder how long he wanted to sell cookies. Then he got a call about the cruise business. This was his opportunity to market an intangible.
“It’s been the most interesting way I could spend my time in the last 20 years,” he said.
Everyone had a mentor. Muskat said that Dan Hanrahan, former president and CEO of Celebrity Cruises, taught him the value of putting himself into uncomfortable situations. “He forced me to go into sales,” said Muskat. “I went in kicking and screaming, and he said that I needed to do it for my development.”
Some on the panel found themselves on parallel tracks. Austin and Stuart attended the same university. Stuart left one job and Austin filled the position. Stuart and his wife moved to Miami, and discovered that Austin lived in the same apartment building.
One agent asked the group how they managed to balance work and family with travel jobs.
Rein, who has three children, said that she would make seven meals on Sundays for the entire week. She dropped off kids at school in the morning; her husband did pickups after school and sports practices.
Freed and her husband had two children, but her husband wanted a third. That was a challenge, since she had just relocated to Florida and he was telecommuting from California.
“Let’s meet in Chicago, “ he said. It was the anniversary of his father’s death, so they were going to put a headstone on his father’s grave in Chicago.
“He picks me up at the airport in a van,” she said, as the audience howled with laughter. “I said, ‘No! Not in a van! So we drove to Embassy Suites.’”
Child No. 3 is now in college.
“It’s all about flexibility,” said Freed.
Follow Kate Rice on Twitter @krtravelweekly.