Congratulations to WRTA Member Trafalgar, who is cover story of Travel Age West:Trafalgar turns 60
The tour operator stands the test of time in an evolving industry.
by Anne Burke
07/09/2007
Most American vacationers — a good 90 percent — have never been on an escorted tour. Until about four years ago, John Severini would have included himself in that vast pool of the uninitiated. That’s a little surprising, considering that today, Severini is one of the escorted-tour industry’s most passionate and indefatigable pitchmen.
Severini is president of Trafalgar Tours, which this year celebrates six decades of selling escorted vacations. Before joining Trafalgar in 2003, Severini spent 20 years in cruise industry executive offices, first with Royal Cruise Line and later the Walt Disney Company. As a “cruise guy,” Severini preached the doctrine that the best way to experience a destination was by ship.
Eight months into his tenure at Trafalgar, Severini finally had a chance to sample the product. He signed himself up for a Trafalgar tour that would stop in Rome, where his family comes from and where he still has relatives. Severini already knew the Eternal City well — he had visited perhaps 15 times — so he wasn’t exactly full of expectation about the trip.
As it turned out, Rome was a revelation. Severini’s group got into the Sistine Chapel before the doors officially opened that morning, so he was able to see Michelangelo’s masterpiece without getting jostled by crowds. His companions indeed included older ladies in sensible walking shoes — but also honeymooners from Texas, two single guys, a mom-and-daughter duo and several pairs of girlfriends. The whole thing “was a lot more fun than I thought,” he said.
Since then, Severini has become evangelical about escorted tours. On this afternoon, during an interview in his Southern California office, he talks for 3½ hours on the subject, almost without pause. Escorted tours, he tells me, are hands down more rewarding and a better buy than either cruises or independent touring.
“If you really want to experience the magic of a destination,” he said, “you’ve got to do it on an escorted tour.”
Nevertheless, Severini says travel agents are getting “shopped” when it comes to selling escorted tours. That’s not big news. Travel agents have known for a long time that travelers are picking up brochures from their offices and then purchasing individual elements of the trip on the Internet, thinking they’ll save money. In fact, Severini says, independent travelers end up paying 30 to 40 percent more than if they had purchased the escorted tour. The problem, he continues, is that independent travelers aren’t finding out they made a mistake until it’s too late.
English Origins
Trafalgar is headquartered in Anaheim, Calif., but as the name suggests, the company began life in England. In 1947, Bill Nunn, an Army war vet, started a company called Industrial Recreation Services, which sold group travel and entertainment to industrial clients. Among the early outings was a coach trip to see Harpo Marx at the London Palladium. In 1949, Industrial Recreation Services set up shop in Trafalgar Square, the London landmark that would lend the company its name 10 years later. In coming years, the company ventured farther afield, offering European coach tours, a Cape Town-Southampton sailing and a Cold War-era trip to Moscow.
Sixty years after Nunn’s first motorcoach outing, Trafalgar is one of the top players in escorted tours, alongside blue-chip names like Globus and Tauck. Each year the company offers more than 200 itineraries and 3,000 departures. Its principal markets are Europe and Britain but Trafalgar is also active in the U.S. (Alaska and Hawaii included), Canada, Mexico, South America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Mediterranean countries like Morocco and Egypt.
The company is known for a top-drawer product that is aimed at the mass market and offered at a competitive price.
“We’re not trying to be the super upscale product, and we’re not the budget product,” Severini explained. “What we are is high quality, and we’ll take you wherever you want to go … short of trekking in Nepal.”
Kelly Bell, who manages supplier relations for AAA Travel in San Francisco, said members of the auto club “love Trafalgar.”
“They love the tours and they love the member discounts we get for them,” she said.
Trafalgar primarily offers rubber-to-the-road tours. Its motorcoaches are conspicuous with their rainbow-colored stripes and red “TT” emblems. In recent years, however, Trafalgar has begun offering small-ship cruise experiences. Since 2004, boats loaded with Trafalgar travelers have been cruising the rivers and waterways of Europe, the Nile and Russia’s Volga.
Many Trafalgar motorcoach tours now include cruise segments; travelers on the 12-day China tour, for example, spend four days sailing the Yangtze. Passengers travel aboard ships operated by Uniworld, one of Trafalgar’s sister companies.
Trafalgar and Uniworld are owned by the privately held Travel Corporation, a managing brand for some 16 travel and tourism companies. In addition to Trafalgar and Uniworld, sister companies include Contiki Holidays, Insight Vacations, Australia’s AAT Kings and the recently acquired Brendan Worldwide Vacations. Trafalgar alone employs well over 150 people, among them 22 field reps who call on travel agents. The company’s sales and marketing operations are based in Anaheim. Group sales are handled out of Rye, N.Y.; reservations out of Toronto and Anaheim.
While “TravCorp” is the parent, the offspring are distinct brands, responsible for their own profits and losses. Trafalgar, for one, experiences “healthy,” year-over-year growth, Severini said. While the Globus Family of Brands, which carries half a million passengers a year, might disagree, Severini maintains that Trafalgar is the dominant escorted-tour player in Europe, in terms of total passengers.
Defying Predictions
That Trafalgar is doing well at all these days defies the doom sayers. Ten years ago, noted Bob Whitley, president of the United States Tour Operators Association (USTOA), the industry was rife with grim speculation that the baby-boom juggernaut — populated by uncompromising do-it-yourselfers — would kill off the escorted tour business.
But two things happened. Doing it yourself at 60 turned out to be not as much fun as it had been at 40 or 50. Confronted with achy bones and less energy than younger travelers, boomers “want things done for them. They don’t want to make 50 reservations for a two-week tour of Europe,” Whitley said.
Secondly, the industry changed. Escorted tours used to be built around the “stop, stand and stare” model, said Randy Julian, chairman and CEO of the National Tour Association (NTA). Today, “there’s more of what I call sight-doing rather than sightseeing,” Whitley said.
Trafalgar, for example, makes it possible for cooking enthusiasts to prepare a meal under the tutelage of a chef in a real Provencal kitchen or windsurf in Costa Rica. Younger travelers can dance until dawn and sleep late the next morning. Families can do Disneyland and theater buffs can sneak off to a show. There’s less of an on-the-bus, off-the-bus mentality among tour directors.
“The idea that we must schedule their entire day from wake-up to bedtime doesn’t exist anymore,” said Eric Maryanov, president of the Los Angeles-based All-Travel.
Moreover, motorcoaches have become more comfortable. Floor-to-ceiling windows and ergonomically designed reclining seats are common. Newer Trafalgar coaches feature aisle seats that scoot outward to put more space between side-by-side passengers. Motorcoaches are also going high-tech. Computer technology will soon make it possible to book a show or select a menu item while still on the bus.
These efforts to upgrade the product, Severini adds, are attracting younger travelers to Trafalgar. While baby boomers still comprise the company’s core market (the average age is 56, down in recent years from 60) “30- and 40-year-olds are coming over to our side,” Severini said.
They seem to like the product. In post-trip surveys, 98 percent of respondents, asked if they would travel with Trafalgar again, answer yes. Moreover, the outlook for the escorted-tour business is good in general. In a recent USTOA survey, 65 of the top brand names in packaged travel predicted that during the next five years, the escorted tour would outsell the independent package. Since most of the traveling public has yet to take an escorted tour, the industry is dipping from a well that’s nearly full.
But to win over all those escorted-tour virgins, the industry has some work to do. Susan Tanzman, of Martin’s Travel and Tours in Los Angeles, would love to sell escorted tours — it’s easy money, she noted — but her clients don’t ask for them.
“Californians are much more free-spirited travelers. They like to get in a car and drive. They don’t want to sit on a bus,” she explained.
Severini insists the problem is one of image and not product. He said escorted tours take travelers to more of the top attractions, 90 percent of which are too far inland for the cruise ships, which, at any rate, tend to pull out of port just as the fun starts at night. Compared to independent traveling, escorted tours offer better value for the money and eliminate uncertainties and hassles involved with on-your-own touring, he said.
The cruise industry, Severini pointed out, experienced a similar image problem and came out of it nicely. The perception used to be that cruising was fine for people who enjoyed sitting on deck chairs and staring at the water, but for everybody else, it was a big snooze.
“So they changed their product and changed their message, and you don’t hear those misconceptions anymore,” Severini said.
For the escorted tour industry, perception is taking a little longer to catch up to reality, Severini concedes. Part of the reason is that tour operators don’t have the financial resources of the cruise lines to throw behind big marketing campaigns, said Brian W. Stack, president of CIE Tours International and a former chairman of the USTOA.
Partnering with Agents
Severini said the company has spent millions of dollars fostering its relationship with travel agents through sales tools, generous commissions (10 percent up to 18 percent for groups), high-volume rewards, an online booking engine for agents and co-op marketing. (Trafalgar and Dillard’s Travel in Phoenix recently went in on a $200 Dillard’s gift card for each Trafalgar air-inclusive tour.) This year, to mark its 60th birthday, Trafalgar is rewarding travel agents with $60,000 in cash prizes.
Trafalgar only recently began taking direct bookings, and did so only because “the competition does it,” Severini said.
However, if a client books online or over the phone, then decides to use a travel agent, “We’ll [change] it in a heartbeat,” he added.
Severini said Trafalgar tours are easy to sell and generate return business. Travel agents need only follow the step-by-step instructions in Trafalgar brochures, or take an e-learning course on the company’s Web site. Severini said 5,000 agents have taken the course, and research shows they’re selling 24 percent more Trafalgar than agents who haven’t taken the course.
“The agents who are selling us,” Severini said, leaning forward in his chair, “are making a fortune!”
Clearly this cruise executive has become a devoted convert.
