Success story: Valerie Wilson Travel

NEW YORK -- "Benjamin Moore 059," Valerie Wilson said as she watched a visitor inspect the perfectly peach-colored walls of the travel agency that bears her name.

That attention to minute detail -- startling at first -- is evident throughout any conversation with Wilson.

One of her passions, she said, is sharing information. Her predilection has combined well with one of her other favorite things -- travel -- in what she describes as her fourth career.

In an era of agency shrinkage -- both in the number of agencies and in the size of many agencies' staffs -- Valerie Wilson Travel has grown.

On the Travel Weekly Top 50 agencies roster for 2000, Valerie Wilson logs in at No. 37, up from No. 43 last year. Its gross revenues rose from $151 million to $193 million in 1999, and its ARC business rose from $104 million to $124 million.

The agency has been a member of Virtuoso, the high-end consortium, since May 1998.

Park Avenue views

Not only has Wilson kept her flagship office on Manhattan's Park Avenue, with magnificent views from four corner offices, she has added more space, and the agency now occupies three full floors and part of a fourth.

From three employees in 1981, the population of the Park Avenue office has grown to 167 employees and "associate agents" -- (Wilson refuses to call them independent contractors) -- who work amid impressive antiques and stunning photographs taken by Wilson's daughter, Kimberly Wilson Wetty, senior vice president of the firm.

Crain's Business ranked Valerie Wilson Travel as the fourth largest female-owned firm in the New York area, based on 1998 revenues.

Through Wilson's acquisitions and the addition of associate and affiliated agencies, the network has grown to 18 locations, stretching from Maine to South Carolina.

It is without doubt a success story of which Wilson, who started out in the fashion industry -- she established Gant's ladies' shirt division -- can be proud.

But back in 1995, Wilson felt the pain of the first airline commission cut as keenly as any agent in the country.

"We all scurried around for a while," Wilson said in her 35th-floor office, which is killingly elegant underneath a dozen piles of papers, files and assorted works in progress.

"Then we sat down and met with all the agents and staff and came up with our plan."

To fee or not to fee

Until then, Valerie Wilson Travel had never charged a fee in its 14-year existence, but that was about to change: VWT, in fact, became the first Manhattan agency to charge fees.

Wilson did not want to work up a "Chinese menu" of service fees, however, because "we are not a Chinese restaurant."

And when you offer a very high level of service that focuses on detail, "you don't want to send out a separate invoice for every little thing," she said.

Instead, she worked up analyses of her corporate clients' travel business and, armed with Excel spreadsheets, went to each of them with information on what they spent, how much VWT had saved them and options on how they could continue their relationships with the agency to the benefit of both sides.

"We customized each program," Wilson said. "We took into account their needs, and we gave them options and recommendations on whether they should go with flat fees or percentages, for example."

Corporate clients liked that approach, she said, because the recommendations were based on their own data and because they were given choices.

Shifting the mix

The plan worked so well that Wilson has not had to substantially reduce the corporate share of her business mix, which has remained at about 65%.

Her roots, however, are on the leisure side of the business. Back in 1967, Wilson abandoned the fashion industry to devote herself to her second career: raising Kimberly and her sister, who is now VWT executive vice president Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg.

But it wasn't long before Wilson's volunteer activities blossomed into Career No. 3. She became an active fund raiser for a number of organizations and helped establish the first home for abused and abandoned children in New York's Westchester County.

Her volunteer work continued when, in 1977, the family moved to London, where Wilson became one of the founders of the International Junior League.

In London, Wilson began meticulously planning vacation and business trips for her family; friends began to seek her out for travel recommendations, and when the family returned to the U.S., Career No. 4 was a natural.

For Wilson, that passion for sharing information begins at home. Each day at the agency begins with the distribution of a one-page news briefing so that every employee and associate is up-to-date on important developments both within and without those peach-colored walls.

Employees share, too: New York hotel rooms have become as scarce as hen's teeth, so "no one ever cancels a hotel room in New York," Wilson said.

Instead, if a traveler's plans change, the agents huddle to determine whether any other client is in need of a room. That's just one example of the "team-building" Wilson likes to see in her staff.

Air friendly

Wilson attributes her success in part to team-building with her preferred suppliers.

Those relationships are so solid, she said, that she can say the words "airline partners" with no irony whatsoever.

"I had a lot of help from British Airways when I first started," Wilson said. American, Air France and Delta are her other partners.

"Both sides need each other," Wilson said. "You still need a DSM [district sales manager] who will take your call.

"These relationships have been tested, but they are stronger," she said.

One of the keys to maintaining such strong ties is fierce enforcement of the "preferred" status of the preferred supplier.

"If we find that someone here has booked a Virgin Atlantic ticket, we void it the next morning," Wilson said. VWT also charges fees on the leisure side.

Wetty, Wilson's talented photographer daughter who works on the leisure side, said the fees are generally set up front and can vary widely, depending on the complexity of the trip.

"People used to be embarrassed to say they had a fee," Wetty said, "but now it's the first thing you say."

"Why did anyone ever say, 'My services are free'?" her mother added. "It set up a bad perception."

If VWT has gotten past fear of fees, it also has no fear of that great new frontier, the Internet.

The agency waded right in with a "Valerie Wilson Travel" site in the mid-1990s. It is not a booking site, but allows potential clients to e-mail a request to the agency.

LUXURY4LESS

Last October, the agency launched luxury4less.com, a more ambitious site that focuses on high-end leisure travel and seeks to give visitors a taste of the glamorous adventures that could be theirs.

But Wilson wasn't satisfied with the name -- "it sent out the wrong message" -- so the site has been reborn as luxelife.com, a name that has some "richness and body to it," much like the type of travel it promotes.

The "search" feature is called "What's Your Dream?"

It still is not a booking site, however; it asks for some basic information, along with a request for a convenient "talk time."

Wilson believes that clients may dabble or do research on the Internet, but if you do your job right, "the customer will still come back to you."

A travel agent takes orders; the Internet takes orders.

"The difference is that I am a travel counselor," Wilson said.

Valerie Wilson's tips for survival

If, for example, you think you know the meaning of the words "attention to detail," take a look at one of Wilson's customized itineraries. It includes contact names and phone numbers, rates, confirmation numbers, type of car used for sightseeing (air-conditioned Mercedes sedan, for example; suggested gratuities for drivers and guides; description of room type and definition of any nebulous term (junior suite, for example); check-in times for flights; check-out times for hotels; dinner reservations or suggested restaurants with addresses and phone numbers; arrangements for meeting guides or other personnel, and seat numbers for theater performances, all contained in one document. How does Wilson manage to be so specific? She picks up the phone.