Luxury Travel Advisor - April 2008 - (Page 54)

COVER STORY The rest, as they say, is history. Fast forward to February 2008. While Mom oversees operations and sells as a front-line agent and Dad handles budgets (in addition to his role at Park Avenue Travel, the elder Bush’s full-time job is as director of corporate development for the Quaker Chemical Corporation), Josh Bush is still fast at work dissecting Park Avenue Travel’s business practices. He’s constantly upgrading its technology—one of Bush’s major objectives is to implement communications and booking technology that allows the company to employ more independent contractors regardless of their location—and developing strategies are going to be around in 10 years or five years or so. Every day there’s a new e-mail or memo saying, ‘We’re cutting back on [commissions],’ so that totally puts us back into that advisor mode; we’re providing a service.” The need, according to Bush, is “to elevate this trade to a standard where we’re seen at the level of somebody else who’s dispensing advice, whether it’s a doctor, an attorney or a financial planner, because that’s what we do. People entrust their financial assets to these advisors, and yet the most valuable resource people have is their free time. That’s something you’re going to invest with a travel advisor because you want to make sure that once you get to your says, “that’s the only thing that’s going to be sustainable—those fees.” And so, the Bushes have turned to non-traditional sources when it comes to staffing their agency, with new hires including an attorney, a pharmaceutical sales rep and a stock broker, most of whom “have either made enough money and now want to do something fun or happy, or simply have a passion for travel,” she says. “These are people who come from nice backgrounds; they know what luxury is and they can talk about that knowledgably. These are people who have another source of income or who have made money somewhere else, because it takes a while to make money in this business. That they have this passion, we think that’s the right combination.” The Bushes, like many agency owners, one could surmise, have found that employees who come from an agent background, no matter how good they are at doing their job as an advisor, still are steeped in the tradition of not charging. “Whereas our new young attorney said to me the other day, ‘Well, why wouldn’t I charge for this? I did the work, I should be compensated,’” Debbie Bush says. “So her whole mindset is totally different, is totally in the correct direction for where the industry is going. We just need to be looking at how to bring in people who already have this mindset, and then have them help those of us who aren’t coming from that direction to get there. Ultimately, I think that’s where we should be.” Amid the strategizing, the guesswork, the risk-taking and the planning, one thing the entire Bush “triumvirate,” as they’ve playfully pegged their three-person team, can agree on is the partnership’s profound effect on the family itself. “We all come at it with different strengths that play off of each other very well,” Josh says. “At the risk of sounding too sappy, my relationship with my family has grown amazingly close over the last two years as compared to what it was when this all began. And we’re all working for the same thing, which is very rewarding.” As for the future of Park Avenue Travel and of having his son close by to pave the way, “Josh is contagious,” Craig Bush says. “He’s gotten us involved that much more.” It looks like retirement can wait. BUSH AND SIR RICHARD BRANSON bond over space travel at the Virgin Galactic SpaceShip Two unveiling in New York City (above, left). REVELING in weightlessness, Bush floats during his Zero-G flight over Las Vegas (above, right). to attract and maintain a new crop of affluent clients. However, one of the issues Bush most fastidiously champions involves the front-line agents themselves—at Park Avenue Travel and beyond—particularly, his wish for them to see themselves as more than just travel agents. That, he says, means recognizing their worth as true advisors, and being compensated as such. “I’m not an expert and I don’t pretend to know what’s going to happen in the future, but I’m also looking at what has been the trend in compensation for travel agents in the past,” Bush says. “And I see us moving more to a net pricing system as opposed to a commission-based system. I don’t think commissions destination it’s as easy as possible. Once you’re there, you’re having an absolutely amazing experience and you’re not thinking about anything else,” he says. “I think that we as advisors need to be compensated for that, because it’s our expertise and our relationships that are going to enable our clients to have that. It’s what helps you fix problems when things go wrong and it helps you add the special touches and special amenities that you can’t get from a computer screen.” The question, then, is, “how?” One matter a lot of agency owners grapple with now, Debbie Bush says, and what could be a solution, is training agents to be comfortable charging fees. “In the long run,” she 54 LUXURY TRAVEL ADVISOR | April 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Luxury Travel Advisor - April 2008

Luxury Travel Advisor - April 2008 Contents Publisher's Letter Editor's Letter London DESTINATIONS India Greece HOTELS Golf Royal Hideaway Playacar Chateau Marmont SPAS Hawaiin Spas Southeast Asia CRUISES: Antarctica Cover Story: Rocket man The Pulse Traveling Gourmet Jetset Sightings Source List

Luxury Travel Advisor - April 2008

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