Have Gun -- Will Travel. More than just the title of the
popular late-1950s TV western, those words also perfectly describe Steve Turner's
line of work.
Turner, 54, is the owner of San Antonio-based Travel With
Guns, an agency focused solely on helping hunters journey with their sporting
firearms. He's quick to note that it's a small niche market in which few
agencies specialize.
"Most agencies, you can book [travel], but when it
comes to the firearms, that's where the problem lies: knowing all the rules,"
he said.
Turner's journey until the 2009 opening of Travel With
Guns was an interesting one, especially considering that he is not a hunter.
Though born in the U.K., Turner grew up in South Africa,
where he was exposed early on to safaris and native wildlife. Trips to Kruger
National Park were common during school holidays. And by the time he finished
school in Namibia, he had also been exposed to wanderlust.
"My biggest thing that I wanted to do -- and most South
African kids wanted to do once they left school -- they wanted to travel
because we were so far from everywhere," he said. "And at that time,
it was so isolated, with apartheid, everybody wanted to [travel]."
At that point, Turner was using a local travel agent to plan
a ski trip to Europe. He found the agent's job so interesting that not long
after, in January 1981, he became an agent himself. He worked in Namibia for
three years before moving to Cape Town, where he enrolled in marketing school
but only lasted one semester.
Realizing that he wasn't learning anything new, he walked
out. That afternoon, he got a job with a local American Express Travel
affiliate.
Over the years, Turner moved between Cape Town and
Johannesburg, working as an agent. In 1996, he heard about an opportunity with
an agency in San Antonio that was looking for someone with knowledge of Africa.
He did a two-week tryout with the agency, flew back to South Africa to tie up
loose ends and has been in San Antonio ever since.
Steve Turner, owner of Travel With Guns, focuses on selling airfare to hunters.
Turner helped build up that agency's niche specialty in
traveling with sporting firearms.
"In the early days, it was still pretty easy to travel
with your sporting firearm," he recalled. "There weren't any rules
and regulations, as long as you declared it at check-in, pretty much around the
world. Except for a few countries, there was no problem to do it. But then
things started changing, laws started coming in."
Over the years, it got more difficult to travel with
firearms, which for many hunters underscored the need to work with a
professional, and Turner further honed his skills.
"It's a niche market that people are going to come to
you for the knowledge, because they want to know that their firearms are going
to make it when they get there," he said. "If they arrive without
their firearms, they can't do anything. It's not like you can go on a trip and,
if your bags arrive five days later, you can go buy some [necessities in the
meantime]. You can't go out and buy a gun and ammunition just like that."
In 2009, he felt the time was right to move on from the San
Antonio agency and strike out on his own. Turner founded Travel With Guns that
April.
He had some clients who knew him, and he advertised to find
more. Turner also employed a savvy marketing strategy: He would set up camp on
the trade show floors of large conventions of affinity groups like the Dallas
Safari Club and book air tickets for hunters who booked their hunts with safari
vendors. Word of mouth from both hunters and suppliers has been key in building
up his business.
Turner focuses on selling airfare to hunters, charging a fee
of $225 per person. Though he does not sell hunts, he does occasionally sell
arrangements for accommodations. Airfare is his bread and butter, and
anything outside of that, like commission from a hotel booking, is just a "cherry
on the top," he said.
Booking the flights involves a lot of planning on Turner's
part.
The first and most important factor he considers is the
airline and whether it is gun-friendly. The second factor that comes into play
is whether there is enough time between flights if there is a connection,
because additional security is required when it comes to transferring guns from
airline to airline. The third factor, normally first on most travelers' lists,
is price.
There is also a lot of paperwork involved. Turner said most
airlines require agents to preregister firearms. Additionally, the U.S. does
not require a license for shotguns or rifles, but most other countries do.
"So, how do we prove to them that they're licensed to
hold these firearms? The only way to do that is registering with customs,"
Turner said.
Turner uses a specific customs form to register hunters'
firearms as personal effects, and the customs office will inspect the form and
the serial number of the weapon, then stamp and date the form. That, Turner
said, "becomes the license in the eyes of the rest of the world."
He also provides hunters with paperwork outlining the rules
of transporting sporting firearms in case there is an issue, and Travel With
Guns maintains a 24/7 help line should travelers run into any difficulties.
As an added layer of protection, he provides his clients
with Blue Ribbon Bags service, a tracking service that guarantees missing
baggage will be delivered within 96 hours or the client receives a large
payout.
Most of Turner's clients travel internationally, with Africa
being his biggest destination. But some do travel domestically to spots like
Alaska. Other popular destinations are Canada, Mexico and Argentina.
Hunting itself is viewed by many as a controversial pastime,
but Turner said his agency has yet to be caught up in any backlash, which he
largely attributed to the fact that he doesn't sell the hunt itself. He also
pointed out that sport hunters, especially those headed to Africa, pay a great
deal to get a permit, and most of those fees are applied to conservation
efforts.
Nevertheless, considering the current climate and dialogue around firearms, Turner is considering
rebranding Travel With Guns to the less provocative TWG.
No matter his agency's name, though, Turner said hunters are
a resilient bunch who provide steady business.
"They don't get put off by the things happening in
Qatar at the moment or the bombings in London and that," he said. "They
take it as part of the world."