Luxury Travel Advisor - September 2007 - (Page 71) Sho Dozono Azumano Travel’s leader balances business acumen with heartfelt humanity. W hen you take a good look around the conference room of Azumano Travel’s headquarters in Portland, OR, one award stands out among the dozen displayed—an Olympic Torch from the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. “At that time, my daughter worked in the mayor’s office as press secretary,” says Sho Dozono, president and CEO of Azumano Travel, which is a member of the American Express Travel network. “She called me and said the City of Portland didn’t have the $20,000 to pay for overtime costs for the torch to be carried through the city. I told her not to worry, that I’d raise it myself.” Later, in the hallway, Dozono points to a picture showing him in track sweats, jogging through the streets of Portland carrying the Olympic Torch held high. “It wasn’t designed that way, for me to carry the torch, but that’s how it turned out,” says Dozono. It’s true that it wasn’t designed that way. It was Dozono’s love for his community and his proactive “let’s-get-it-done” philosophy that put him at the head of the pack that day. Here’s another example of that get-to-it attitude, which you might have already heard about. In 2001, when the terrorist attacks in New York City brought travel to a standstill, Dozono and his wife, Loen, came up with a concept they called Flight to Freedom, in which a group would fly from Oregon to New York in a show of support for the beleaguered city and for the right of Americans to travel. “I realized that the only way for our business to recover, and to recover as a country, was for people to get back to traveling,” Dozono recalls. “At first, I invited some close friends to join us on the Flight to Freedom, but with coverage from the local media, the group burgeoned into a group of 1,000 people,” says Dozono. When the group arrived, they were officially recognized by President Bush and Mayor Giuliani; they even got to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Subsequently, their mission garnered Azumano Travel the AZUMANO TRAVEL President & CEO: Sho Dozono Headquarters: Portland, OR Year of Origin: 1949 (Dozono acquired the business from his father-in-law in 1987) Number of Agents: 250 agents, all on payroll Number of Locations: 12 offices: 10 in Oregon, one in Washington and one in Alaska Annual Volume of Business: $250 million Affiliation: American Express Travel Services Representative Website: www.azumano.com American Express “Great Performers” award. In 2004, when the tsunami struck in Southeast Asia, Dozono organized a group of 60 people to travel to raise awareness of what was happening in the area. “We felt that, as an industry, we really needed to help that area recover its tourism, and we worked with PATA to highlight the tourism-dependent areas of Thailand,” says Dozono. In subsequent years, Dozono was part of relief and humanitarian awareness efforts in post-Katrina New Orleans and in North Korea. “These efforts have less to do with business—it’s giving back to your community that’s important,” he says. But while Dozono is clearly a humanitarian, and a strong one at that, he also has quite a healthy travel business that is still in growth mode. In fact, Azumano Travel, whose headquarters are in the historic district of Portland, has bragging rights as the largest travel management company in the Northwest. It comprises 250 employees in 12 offices throughout the Portland metropolitan area and the Willamette Valley. It also has several offices in the Puget Sound area, as well as a location in Vancouver, WA and in Anchorage. This year the company has already pulled in $225 million in gross sales and, according to Dozono, will end the year at the $250 million mark. A healthy 80 percent of the company’s business is corporate travel, while the remaining 20 percent is leisure. But while that might be a small portion of the business, “we’re talking about $35 million in leisure, so we’re not insignificant in that area,” says Dozono. BY MARK ROGERS www.luxuryta.com September 2007 | LUXURY TRAVEL ADVISOR 71 http://www.azumano.com http://www.luxuryta.com
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