Luxury Travel Advisor - August 2008 - (Page 61)

Strong Travel Family Ties Nancy and Jim Strong Take Luxury Service to the Extreme f not for the coffee, Strong Travel Services might never have come into existence. In 1975, Nancy Strong had secured her first job for a travel agency, which entailed driving around Dallas to deliver airline tickets for $2 an hour. So seriously she took this simple responsibility that she dressed to the nines in white gloves and a hat every day. And why not? It was her very first job; until now she had focused primarily on raising her five young sons and maintaining a home in Dallas with her husband, Ace. When the agency suddenly lost three people, Strong was moved into a full-time position, handling the travel for the International Newspaper Association. “The phone would ring and they’d say, ‘New York Times calling Nancy Strong’….‘Chicago Tribune calling Nancy Strong.’ This was big stuff to me,” she recalls. Then the memo came out. It decreed that the women in the office would have to make coffee for the three men who worked there. Strong refused and was fired on the spot. Not missing a beat, she joined forces with a friend to launch her own agency in a 60story building in Dallas, where from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. each morning, they’d ride the elevator, chatting loudly about the fabulous new travel agency that had just opened on the 10th floor; that agency just happened to be theirs. The corporate travel business was an immediate success, growing eventually to six additional locations in downtown Dallas. “I literally put my wagons around the block because each building became a small city in itself of corporate business,” says Strong. A. Strong Travel, as it was known I from 1975 to 1987, blossomed into a $30 million enterprise with 55 employees. The business from its inception was a family affair. Nancy’s son Jim had started as a part-timer while still in high school, delivering tickets throughout the academic year and chasing down hotel commissions during summer vacations. By 1978, he was a fullfledged corporate reservationist. After a long and successful career in the world of finance, Nancy’s husband, Ace, joined the agency in 1980 to help guide its dramatic growth. (To this day, Nancy credits Ace for being her key advisor. “He is the most incredible teacher in the world. I give all the credit for my success to my husband,” she says.) A. Strong’s success caught the eye of a local businessman who offered to buy the company. Nancy demanded cash. He paid her on a Friday, she and Ace took a noncompete, and made their exit. Three days later, on Black Monday, October 19, 1987, the stock market STRONG TRAVEL SERVICES Headquarters: Dallas CEO: Nancy Strong President: Jim Strong Number of Agents: Nine full-time consultants; nine inhouse independent contractors; 18 home-based agents Business Mix: Leisure: 55 percent; Corporate: 30 percent; Groups: 15 percent Annual Revenue: In excess of $30 million Website: www.strongtravel.com Affiliation: Virtuoso went into free fall. Within 18 months, A. Strong Travel was out of business. The Strongs got back into the game when they purchased Marilou Sargent & Associates Travel Specialists, Inc., a leisure agency catering to the carriage trade, which had never sold a corporate airline ticket. The agency was an original member of API, which became Virtuoso. Nancy’s passion for selling luxury travel to the affluent Dallas community led to an event that could be considered just short of a miracle by any seller of affluent travel: In 1993, a profile appeared of her on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, which glowingly painted the high level of service Nancy extended to her clients. The article noted the personalized touches she provided, such as wrapping vacation documents in a best-selling novel she knew her clients would enjoy or faxing them the latest baseball scores while they were sailing on a cruise ship. The article put her on the map internationally: VIPs far and wide now wanted Nancy Strong as their luxury travel advisor. To this day, she is still working with many of those clients, and while she is CEO of the firm, her entire focus is on selling travel. Jim Strong, the agency’s president, spends 75 percent of his time selling. Combined, the mother and son’s personal book of business holds 500 to 600 clients. The agency as a whole, with more than $30 million a year in revenue, has 5,000 clients, corporate and leisure combined. The Strongs are discreet about their clientele; however, they will reveal that their roster includes the CEOs of many Fortune 500 companies. That list is complemented by a generous portion of über-affluent clients from BY RUTHANNE TERRERO www.luxuryta.com August 2008 | LUXURY TRAVEL ADVISOR 61 http://www.strongtravel.com http://www.luxuryta.com

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Luxury Travel Advisor - August 2008 Contents Publisher's Letter Editor's Letter Maui Dubai Cape Town The Capella Resort and Spa, at Pedregal Cabo San Lucas Ritz-Carlton Cancun Presidential Suites The Palazzo, Las Vegas The Water Club Arrabelle at Vail Square Ferntree The Spa at Half Moon Fall Foliage Cruises New England Strong Travel On the Horizon: Luxury Travel Expo The Pulse Traveling Shopper Leaders Speak Sightings Source List

Luxury Travel Advisor - August 2008

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