by John Frenaye
Monday December 07, 2015

This weekend I am doing something I have rarely done for the past (almost) 20 years—taking a quick vacation and not thinking about work.* I felt it might be good to take a look at the experience through the eyes of my customer to give me a different perspective. My girlfriend and I booked a mini getaway to Asheville without any industry perks or rates.

Throughout the weekend, we both began to see how much has changed; for better and for worse.

While security has definitely added a layer of hassle to air travel, the process has also been sped up. Electronic check-in, curbside check-in, and mobile boarding passes have all worked to our advantage to speed up our time from curb to gate—unfortunately today’s security somewhat…

A mistake that many sales professionals make is that they are shortsighted when it comes to evaluating their customers.

With the blame pointing toward a tough economy, too many sales people try to rush the sale to fatten their wallets... prematurely, I might add.

Try becoming the exception by seeing new customers as the potential annuity they truly…

by Richard Earls
Sunday December 06, 2015

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. ~ Calvin Coolidge

All manner of personalities take on travel consulting. Those who remain in the business more than a couple of years, however, share some common traits that serve to explain their ability to remain in place in an industry so challenging. As President Coolidge indicated, if you are not persistent, there is no other quality to take it's place.  There are seldom any shortcuts, just the love of what you are doing and the determination to do it…

Arthur Berman has worked in no other industry but travel his entire working life. The third generation of travel professionals after his Grandfather and Father, when other kids were off to camp for the summer, Arthur would sit in his father’s office and write out airline and steamship tickets, work the teletype machine or mimeograph, essentially whatever needed to be done around the office.

In the 1960’s Arthur worked for Astral Travel, handling the Metropolitan Opera Companies travel as well as their National Opera Company. In the 1970’s he moved on to the Israel market for Global of London before opening his own company with a partner called Vacation Travel Concepts, which opened up Rio de Janeiro to…