Yours for the Taking

The year was 2004. I had sold my agency a few years earlier and was working in real estate and in travel as an independent contractor when I got a call to see if I was interested in helping a struggling franchise group in Minneapolis. Cruise Holidays was a part of Carlson Leisure Group run by Mike Batt and Roger Block. After a series of interviews, and at the age of 40, I started my first corporate job as the first issue of AGENTatHOME debuted.

Travel Leaders

A few years later, I had moved on to Expedia CruiseShipCenters. The Carlson family had sold CLG to its executive team led by Batt. They called themselves the Travel Acquisition Group. You know them today as Travel Leaders. Despite negative world events and recessions, Batt and Block gambled that travel would continue to grow globally.

Industry Visionaries

That bet continues to pay off, as have those placed by industry visionaries such as Royal Caribbean’s Richard Fain, Carnival’s Bob Dickinson, OSSN’s Gary Fee and Expedia CruiseShipCenters’ Michael Drever.

I remember when the largest cruise ships in the world carried just 2,000 passengers. The industry questioned if there would ever be enough demand to fill them – though neither Fain nor Dickinson did. Today’s ships are three times that in capacity and yet they continue to sail full.

History Lesson

In 2004, the home-based channel was in its infancy. It was not yet widely accepted by the industry and suppliers hadn’t figured out how to serve the market. If history has taught us anything, it is that today, tomorrow and every day in the future holds tremendous potential. It’s yours for the taking.

Let’s face it, we sell fun; so what’s not to love! Raise a glass to another travel visionary, travAlliancemedia founder, president and CEO Mark Murphy, along with the AGENTatHOME team. Here’s to the future!

Dan Chappelle is a sales performance coach and professional business advisor. His training and consulting firm develop sales-focused business leaders and entrepreneurs in the travel industry.