Luxury Travel Advisor - December 2007 - (Page 52) COVER STORY Beyond Italy Bob Romano and Fugazi Travel Expand the Edges of Their Clients’ World elling Italy comes naturally for Bob Romano. By the time he joined Fugazi Travel (www. fugazitravel.com) in 1986, he’d already traversed much of the country to visit local vineyards on behalf of his family’s wine business. These treks turned out to be the ideal preparation for launching his career at Fugazi Travel, since the agency’s core strength at one point was sending first-generation Italians in the Bay Area back to their homeland for vacations and to visit loved ones. Today, Romano and his colleagues at Fugazi Travel, which is located in San Francisco and has 14 full-time agents and six independents, are well known for selling customized travel to Italy. Need a top hotel suite in Rome? They’ve got it. Need to travel from Milan to Venice and on to Florence and want a hot sports car and the best hotel suite in each city? No problem. “The agency’s customers today are those who include Italy as a regular stop in their annual travel program,” says Romano, who today is a partner and assistant vice president at the agency. “They are definitely booking five-star-plus hotels, from Baglioni, Lungarno Hotels, Fours Seasons, The Leading Hotels of the World, Small Luxury Hotels, Relais and Châteaux and a number of independently managed properties.” Although most of Fugazi’s affluent customers are from San Francisco and the Bay Area, many are scattered around the country and even the world, having been referred to S the agency by existing customers. Their commonality is that they have been financially successful in their chosen fields, rather than having inherited their wealth, says Romano. “We are hoping to tap into this type of customer more as more wealth is transferred to the baby boomer population,” he adds. Another goal for Fugazi Travel is to ensure that its Italy customers return to them for their other travel needs. One strategy toward achieving that has been to strike up an alliance with three villa rental companies, which are now featured on the agency’s website. When one of the villa rental companies gets a booking via the Fugazi site, it refers the customers back to the agency to fulfill their other travel needs, such as car rental, travel insurance or even a pre- or post trip to another European city. The “beyond Italy” effort is also assisted through Fugazi Travel’s affiliation with Ensemble Travel Group (of which Romano is a board member), whose On Location program provides clients with access to insider luxury experiences throughout the world. “After the first experience beyond Italy they are ready to do everything and we are “Gen X and Gen Y travel to fewer locations and remain in place for longer periods of time.” —Bob Romano BY RUTHANNE TERRERO able to work with them each year on another trip,” says Romano. “We’re now offering these same clients experiences to places like private safari camps in Botswana or luxury lodges in Thailand, Bhutan, and New Zealand. Sailing adventures in the Galapagos, zip-trekking in Costa Rica and exploring the National Parks of Patagonia are all increasingly popular,” he says. The On Location program also helps the agency’s cruise division compete head to head with the online mega-cruise discounters. “We have been increasingly aggressive in customizing clients’ land programs,” says Romano. “I know that we win business because we get calls from people saying, ‘You did this for so and so, can you do it for us?’ If you look at how Ensemble’s price for a cruise compares with what’s online, it’s usually pretty close. But once you bring in the ability to customize and personalize their port experience, the client is not going to even bring it up.” Fugazi Travel is also benefiting from the demand for luxury multi-generational family trips. It recently booked two large families of 11 people at the St. Regis Bora Bora for 10 nights. Customizing that experience included having the private pools in the children’s and nanny’s suites drained and covered for toddler safety. Another family just got back from their second full ship charter with American Yacht Safaris; they’ve done both Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, says Romano. “Another family just returned from Australia,” he says. “Although they flew first 52 LUXURY TRAVEL ADVISOR | December 2007 http://www.fugazitravel.com http://www.fugazitravel.com
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