Travel Experts Executives at Summit (Photo Credit: Travel Experts)
Since 1989, Travel Experts has been The Perfect Hosts for hundreds of independent travel advisors and the firm is now celebrating its 35th Anniversary.
Susan Ferrell, Founder and President shares how it all began:
When we started the company back in 1989, there was a relatively new rent-a-desk concept operating in a couple of travel agencies. I consulted with the owner of one of those agencies on the West Coast prior to opening Travel Experts. After visiting her office, I felt that working with independent contractors was the way to go. ?
Susan Ferrell (Photo Credit: Travel Experts)
My vision was to allow advisors to become entrepreneurs with unlimited earnings potential. I had also hoped that having all ICs would minimize the management and cost of employees. To this day, we keep our employee staff small but extremely efficient which also allows us to keep IC fees low.
Susan Ferrell was a hotel controller for 11 years, then the business manager for five years at each of two travel agencies. Since my background is more on the business and accounting side, my staff takes a deep breath when I start talking about trip planning, she admitted. The employees, however, are a combination of industry veterans and business support staff that provide the services needed by the ICs.
Ferrells model at the start was to have a shared space with an office filled with ICs. Ferrell says the going was tough in the first couple of years. The majority of travel advisors were women, many of whom were single moms and in need of a paycheck. It was difficult convincing them that they would do well on commissions only so filling the spaces in my office was not happening. Getting that first advisor onboard was an accomplishment. It took several years to fill the dozen spaces we had in the office. My initial vision of having an office, and now a network, of high producing ICs is still our vision today. ?
Over the years, Travel Experts evolved from that initial single office where all the ICs worked, to a worldwide network of travel advisors.?
Ferrell said: When we first opened the office in 1989, the office was the only place from which ICs could work. There was no remote option.
Everything changed when Sabre developed a product that allowed advisors to work from anywhere, they had an internet connection. That allowed us to grow, as we could add advisors from any city or even state. We now have advisors all over the U.S. and in some foreign countries. We still have a very small staff of about 30 to serve the needs of over 550 people. But that staff is extremely skilled at what they do and work efficiently as a team.
Ferrell went on to say: While the vision has not changed, what has changed is the way the ICs have to sell travel now which can be very challenging.
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