WILMETTE, Ill. -- How would you like a client like this: One of the
top executives at Microsoft decides to take his family to Italy for
16 days, staying in suites at five-star hotels and requesting all
kinds of special tours, activities and arrangements, with the total
cost coming to $60,000.
On the one hand, that's a huge commission. On the other hand,
you might feel less than confident about handling such a demanding
and discerning customer.
But that client -- who was real, by the way -- is routine at
Select Italy, a small but fast-growing Midwestern company that
specializes in customized, high-end FIT arrangements; museum
admissions; private walking tours; villa and apartment rentals, and
that now has launched a special-interest tour operation.
The company's sales have doubled annually since the last quarter
of 1997, a spokesman said, and 2000 sales are expected to reach $1
million.
Instead of starting another Italy wholesale operation with
standard off-the-shelf tour products, Andrea Sertoli, president of
the four-and-a-half-year-old firm, said he wanted his company "to
promote the concept of specialization, high-quality standards and
an inside knowledge of the product, with an accent on
originality."
He has done that in each of his specialty products, especially
the customized FIT itinerary planning, which now accounts for
almost half of his business, Sertoli said.
It is not a mass market business -- he said the "entry level"
cost of a custom-itinerary program is around $150 per person, per
day, but most of the tours cost from $10,000 to $30,000, mainly for
families or similar small groups.
"We normally offer travel agents a net cost" on a customized
itinerary, and let them add their own markup, Sertoli said,
although he is willing to discuss other arrangements.
Select Italy prides itself on its ability to find and gain
access to activities and venues that fit the interests of the
client or group, he said.
For example, if your client wants to see the Sistine Chapel but
would rather avoid the tourist mobs that file through the Vatican
Museum every day, Select Italy can arrange a private, after-hours
visit -- although it will cost about $2,700 for a group of eight to
10 persons or $3,000 for more than 10.
The same after-hours visit is available for several of Italy's
most renowned churches, he said.
The Microsoft executive mentioned above had an interest in
Italian marble, so Select Italy's itinerary for him included a trip
not only to the Marble Museum at Carrara, but also a tour of the
Upper Quarry there -- normally off-limits to visitors -- which is
where Michelangelo got the stone to carve the Pieta.
Considering that the Microsoft executive also was a gourmet
chef, Sertoli also took on the touchy task of selecting and booking
great restaurants for the family throughout their stay.
Sertoli makes no apologies for the cost of his firm's services;
clients who are on a budget should consider an off-the-shelf
product, he suggests.
Select Italy's museum reservations and ticketing service, for
instance, carries a significant premium over the cost of buying a
ticket at the door, but a client who has to spend three hours in
the hot sun waiting to get into Florence's Uffizi Gallery might
wish you had given him the option.
"Some say it's expensive, but it's a tremendous service if you
look at it from a time-saving point of view," he said, since people
already holding tickets and advance reservations don't have to wait
in line.
He said Select Italy's museum ticketing business has tripled in
the past year.
Tickets are available for 10 institutions in Florence, ranging
from the Uffizi Gallery to the Pitti Palace museums; 14 historic
churches in Venice; da Vinci's Last Supper in Milan; the Turin
Cathedral and its public showing later this year of the Holy
Shroud; and a dozen attractions in Rome, including the recent
additions of the Colosseum, Palatine Museum, Palazzo Altemps and
Palazzo Massimo.
Select Italy
Phone: (847) 853-1661
Fax: (847) 853-1667
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.selectitaly.com