Travel turnaround

During a time when consumers are clinging to their cash as if it were a life raft, an industry that relies on discretionary spending is staying afloat by embracing change.

The travel business long has been affected by fluctuations in the economy, natural disasters and changes in consumer spending, said Linda Nelson, owner of Signal Mountain Travel. Many travel agencies have been able to weather the storm of the recession with strategic use of the Internet and by becoming more specialized.

“When the recession first began to hit and the stock market was so volatile and people were losing their savings, for those first five or six months we saw a huge downturn,” said Nelson, who has worked at Signal Mountain Travel since it opened in 1989. “In the last 18 months it has improved quite a bit ... Actually, I would say my sales this year for 2010 will definitely be on par with the gross sales of 2006 and 2007.”

Six months ago, Jimmy Campbell, owner of Apollo Travel, closed his office and began working from home. The downturn squeezed out most of his corporate business, which had made up a sizable portion of his income, leading him to turn to an Internet-based model.

Instead of competing with websites that enable travelers essentially to be their own agent, Campbell is using the Internet to grow his narrowly focused agency. He specializes in trips to England, Scotland and Ireland — places he has visited 39 times.

“I’m not a cookie cutter operation that cuts and pastes,” he said. “I sell things that I know and have seen.”

With an abundance of Internet-based travel options, travel agencies large and small have to impress upon consumers the importance of service.

At Chattanooga-based World Travel Service Inc., which specializes in corporate travel and has more than 300 clients, agents emphasize their ability to step in when problems occur.

Bill Murphy, director of corporate sales, said the value of using a travel agent can be most easily seen when a traveler encounters a snag.

“From a leisure standpoint, you can book a cruise online or book a trip online, but if some document doesn’t show up, the traveler has a really long process to get that fixed,” he said. “With travel, you’re always going to run into a problem. Anyone who’s traveled enough knows eventually you run into a problem.”