NEW YORK -- Seventy of the nation's best, and best-known, travel
agents are singled out in the June issue of Conde Nast Traveler
magazine in a new article by Wendy Perrin, author of the
best-selling "Secrets Every Smart Traveler Should Know."
Titled "Miracles Are Us," Perrin's article seeks to highlight
what she dubs "indispensable travel agents" and is dominated by
agents who specialize in upscale leisure travel services.
Sixty-three of the 70 listed agents belong to Virtuoso, the
upscale consortium.
Calling the article "10 years in the making," Perrin said most
of the list was compiled by simply pulling names out of the
extensive Rolodex she has kept over her years working as a travel
writer.
"Doing what I do, you sometimes need the services of a really
good agent, the kind of person who knows how to book a room when no
one else can or who can tell you exactly what that room will look
like," Perrin said.
"One of the agents on the list is Terry McCabe [of Stratton
Travel in Oakland, N.J.,] who has been a friend for a long time,
and she helped me come up with the idea of compiling a
comprehensive list of those kinds of agents -- the ones who really
stand out as true experts on certain kinds of travel
experiences.
"The idea was to cover as much of the world as possible, with
travel agents who specialize in every country possible," Perrin
said. "In my work, I'd already met a wide net of agents who
specialized in specific types of travel experiences -- say
adventure travel or restaurants or cruises -- but there were any
number of destinations out there where I just didn't know who to
call.
So, I worked with the contacts I did have to try to put together
as comprehensive a list as possible."
In looking for the "experts," Perrin said she found an
invaluable resource in the agents she had gotten to know through
her contact with Virtuoso, formerly API, at whose conference Perrin
served as a guest speaker in 1996.
For the article, Perrin said she enlisted the assistance of
Keith Walden, Virtuoso's director of public relations. He said he
sent a broadcast e-mail to every Virtuoso agent informing them of
the project and requesting them to provide him with information
about their destination specialties.
According to Walden, "several hundred" agents replied, and he
forwarded these contacts to Perrin.
Among those on Walden's list was former ASTA president Tom
Keesling of Denver-based Travel Associates, who said that calls are
coming in as a result of the article, and, though there have been
no sales yet, he is pleasantly surprised to find that people are
interested in a place such as Rwanda, his listed area of
expertise.
In Keesling's case, Perrin said, the decision to include him was
easy. Not only is he one of the best-known and respected travel
agents, but his firm has a specialty -- taking tourists to visit
Rwanda's endangered mountain gorillas -- that literally could not
be duplicated.
"Tom is such a fascinating guy, and what he and Ruth [his wife,
who took over a facet of Dian Fossey's work by launching the
Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project] is so unique that it was a
no-brainer to include him," Perrin said.
But determining the final makeup of her list was not as easy,
she said.
Personally interviewing hundreds of agents, based on Walden's
list and others, Perrin said the process was a painstaking
ordeal.
"It was truly a labor of love," she added. "Since the article
came out, I've already been deluged with calls from agents who say
they want to be in 'next year's' edition of the list."
And despite the meticulous effort, she is interested in doing
the same thing again, she said.
In any sequel, Perrin said, she will look to fill some of the
holes she felt were remaining on her list.
"There were some destinations -- Vietnam, Laos, some of the
South American countries, even Canada -- where I didn't find any
one agent who really took that as a specialty, and whether we do
this again or not, I'm definitely interested in hearing from agents
who know those spots well," Perrin said.
"If there are true experts in those spots, and I'm sure there
must be, I haven't found them yet."