Travel Weekly Digital Edition - 50th Anniversary Edition

BURSCH

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stint working for a judge, came on board. It took about 15 years to buy his father out, but he was running things within a couple of years, he said.

Why did he choose to stay with the family travel business? “I’d seen some advantages ... traveling to interesting places, but it was the lifestyle” in a small (population: 10,000)

A pilot with 35 years’ flying experience, Fred Bursch commutes by air between offices.

lakeside resort community. And, “I wanted my kids to be around their grandparents, and it was to work with my dad; he was kinda my idol.”

Pete Bursch, when Travel Weekly interviewed him 25 years ago, lamented computerization because it “sort of took the fun out of it ... you used to call the airlines and you would know the reservationist.”

Son Fred recalled the “revelation” that was teleticketing, the ticketing option that preceded GDSs. For him, computers made basic functions a lot easier and staff more efficient. And the Internet, admittedly a double-edged sword, is an invaluable informa-tion-gathering tool, he said.

But some things are harder today, such as staffing.

In the early days, he recalled, agency staff noted each customer’s travel request on a res card and bunched the cards by airline in time for each carrier’s daily call to the agency to make all reservations at once. The agency staff then wrote the tickets by hand.

Bursch explained that, in such an era, when fares were few and regulated, “you could be an order taker.”

Today, he said, “we have to look for passionate salespeople, people who have good customer relations,” which reduces the pool of candidates.

The business has changed in other ways, too. The business mix was

80% air before the first commission caps in 1995 but is only 35%

now, “which has freed us to do what’s more fun and has higher

margins,” Bursch said.

Clients are a new breed, too. “In the past, we dealt with anyone,” but Bursch doesn’t mind that travelers think they can get a better deal on the Web for cheap Vegas trips, once “our bread and butter.”

That leaves the customers who, while better informed and more demanding, need Bursch Travel for their more complicated,

not to mention pricier, trips. Customers also include those “who don’t want to take their own time on this.”

As for the product, “the overall quality of everything has ratcheted up, ... and clients have moved up, too,” in terms of what they expect.

The destination list is “much broader.” Before the fall of the Iron Curtain, “I could count on one hand the sales to Bulgaria, Romania or Poland, but now selling them is second nature.” The expansion of global airline alliances also has helped broaden choices, Bursch said.

With more branches, Bursch changed something else: A pilot with 35 years’ experience, he travels among the offices on a six-seat, twin-engine Beechcraft Duke.

He has owned planes since the mid-1980s and uses the craft “to expand my days”; he can visit several branches a day but have dinner at home. Besides, he said, his commutes above the clouds on autopilot at about 200 mph are very relaxing.

The agent as airplane pilot?

Some things really did change in 50 years.

FROM THE ARCHIVES
TWO-FISTED LEADER
Nov. 3, 1959

After addressing the ASTA convention in Havana, Cuba’s new president, Fidel Castro, who had just taken power in the island nation, was shown holding a cigar in one hand and with a pen in the other for signing autographs. He had addressed ASTA’s Havana travel congress in English.

TERRORISTS CLOSE CONGRESS
Oct. 27, 1980

The annual ASTA World Travel Congress was canceled at the conclusion of day one after an anti-Marcos faction detonated a bomb during the opening session, injuring 18. President

Ferdinand Marcos was in the room when the bomb exploded. (Photo at right shows delegates assisting an injured agent.)

NEW WEB SITE TO OFFER ‘ONE-STOP’
TRAVEL SERVICE

Oct. 26, 1995
That new Web site was Travelocity, among the earliest of a new breed of travel
agencies aiming to do business only online. It was the first among those that
would rise fairly quickly to mega status. It debuted in March 1996. Microsoft
launched Expedia later that same year.

AIRLINES AGREE TO SELL SATOTRAVEL
Jan. 18, 1999
Sato Travel, a $1 billion travel management corporation owned by 11 U.S. air-
lines, ended 45 years under airline control by agreeing to be acquired by a private
investment team and to become an ARC agency. The buyers were Ambassadors
International, headed by brothers Peter Ueberroth, chairman, and John Ueberroth,
president; Stuart Mill Capital, an investment firm; and GE Pension Trust. It later
became part of Carlson Wagonlit.

CAPSULE
TIME

The oldest agency marketing organizations are Virtuoso, from 1951, and Signature, 1956. First known as Allied Travel and Leisure Tours, respectively, both were cooperatives, though that is not true of Virtuoso now.

These pioneers focused on upscale markets and represented a small portion of retailers. Today, agencies of all sizes and types may be members of marketing groups.

The 1968 creation of Giants, a cooperative, is considered the kickoff event for that shift. Several more groups came on line in the 1970s, Travelsavers among them in 1972.

Perhaps it was inevitable that eight groups were folded into one, Vacation .com, by 1999, with Action 6 added

later, pushing the strength-in-numbers notion further. It is the largest marketing group by number of locations.

Early on, some called such groups “commission clubs,” but suppliers demand more nowadays. The agents use their numbers and technology to market with suppliers more effectively than was possible 50 years ago.

Groups of corporate agencies can negotiate pricing with suppliers, too, which they do for their bottom lines and for customer benefit. They place a greater emphasis on using technology and networking to serve customers.