Luxury Travel Advisor - August 2007 - (Page 60) COVER STORY ENJOYING A LOCAL FAVORITE: Damian McCabe (left) and Anne Morgan Scully (right) of McCabe World Travel are pictured at The Hay Adams in Washington, D.C. With them (standing) are Doug Camp, the hotel’s director of sales and marketing, and Hans Bruland, vice president and general manager of The Hay-Adams. at a cruise agency in Georgetown, Scully went to work for Carlson Wagonlit’s Connecticut Avenue branch. She quickly rose to top management there; however, she soon discovered that she had been promoted out of what she loved best. Another concern was that her clientele was growing and she wanted to be able to offer them top-notch luxury products. She got in touch with Damian McCabe, whom she had met at the Georgetown cruise agency, and who had since started her own agency which qualified for membership in API (now Virtuoso). “I wanted to find the right place for my clients. API was their home,” says Scully. And so Scully in 1996 joined what is today McCabe World Travel and helped steer it toward becoming an agency that focuses on luxury leisure travel. The agency is based in McLean, VA; it has 28 employees, seven of whom are in-house leisure agents, each generating $1 million to $2 million in luxury travel sales annually. Three agents support the more senior agents so they can grow their volume; additionally, there are 16 outside agents in Florida, Arizona, South Carolina and North Carolina. Business has been more than good; in the past three years high-end leisure sales have been growing by 20 to 25 percent and overall revenue is on target to reach $24 million this year. The growth has earned McCabe World Travel a spot at Virtuoso’s annual Chairman’s Recognition Event; it is also a top producer for The RitzCarlton Hotel Company and Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts. “Virtuoso has allowed us to become an extraordinary agency,” says Scully. Keeping to her passion for teaching, Scully mentors many of the agents at McCabe World Travel. She holds a training session every Tuesday and often hosts meetings with supplier sales representatives. All agents participate in WebEx training, particularly those provided by Virtuoso. Several of the agents are in Virtuoso’s local business development program, which provides education in selling specific cruise lines as well as Spain. Additionally, all of the agents are required to write up annual business plans for themselves, and they are reviewed and rewarded quarterly. “They get to see their numbers every quarter. I believe people have to have a goal and that you have to help get them there. But you need A LIFE OF TRAVEL Not surprisingly, Anne Morgan Scully loves to travel; one of her favorite pastimes is standing under the Eiffel Tower when it twinkles. “Now that’s magic,” she says. Scully is also enamored of Ireland and Turkey and she recently fell in love with New Zealand. In October, she is returning to Italy for a vacation. Scully also travels nearly every month to participate on a number of advisory boards, including the Starwood Luxury Advisory Board, Preferred Hotels, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, Travcoa, Seabourn’s Pinnacle Club and Travel + Leisure; she is also a member of Virtuoso’s hotel and resorts committee. The McCabe World Travel president has 60 LUXURY TRAVEL ADVISOR | August 2007 also been chosen to be a part of the Virgin Galactic Space Team, a program that is operated in tandem with Virtuoso. “I am so proud to be part of the Virgin Galactic Space team,” she tells Luxury Travel Advisor. “My husband was a fighter pilot and went to flight school with Dr. Story Musgrave, who has flown on several NASA missions. We have been fortunate to meet several of the other astronauts. We had 21 years in the Air Force and it was such a special part of our lives. I was able to see the pilots’ love of flight and exploration; now I get to pass some of that experience on to those who also dream of space flight.” to monitor their goals and you have to be able to say, ‘ok, this isn’t working,’” says Scully. She is encouraging all of her agents to become specialists. “If you are going to be luxury you have to decide on which part of luxury you are, because you can’t be everything. You have to look at yourself, figure out who you are and attract that client,” says Scully. Part of that strategy will include posting the agents’ profiles, photos and specializations on McCabe World Travel’s website so that consumers can get to know them. “Your profile should attract the people who want to work with you and with whom you want to work,” says Scully. McCabe World Travel also has a strong group business (it just chartered an entire Seabourn ship), and Scully laughs that her clients’ needs have spurred her over the years to evolve from being just a cruise specialist to an agent who also sells hotels. In fact, today, she is a master at customizing trips. (She credits Virtuoso’s On-Site program, which makes on-theground experiences special.) “I am good at seeing what is missing or what would make something more special. I think travel changes who you are. It changed me. Nobody remembers a gift they got two years ago, but they are going to remember seeing their grandfather on an African plane,” she says. Scully today loves to design dream itineraries. In fact, she’s been a finalist seven times for the Today show’s honeymoon contest and has won twice. She has designed itineraries for a surfing honeymoon couple for whom money was no object; they went to Asia, India, the South Pacific and Indonesia. Her top client currently is a family of 25; their over-the-top itineraries include trips to South Africa and Russia. Their vacation to England included a private fly-over by the Royal
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