Volume 138, No. 10 • November 23, 1998
The People's Travel Agency
By Sheryl Nance-Nash
Using your customers as employees.
Can Michael Gross and Randy Warren of Global Travel International
make the traditional travel agent an endangered species? You make
the call. The strategy of these 30-year-olds is to sign up a legion
of consumers to moonlight as independent travel representatives for
a fee of $299 *.
The part-timers only have to refer business to a central call center,
where more than 120 full-time GTI employees (each specializing in
a niche, such as European cruises or Disney family vacations)* make
reservations for free. The payoff for independent agents: a 50% GTI
commission, plus steep discounts on their own travel packages. Traditional
travel agents, on the other hand, earn only 10% on packages they
arrange. GTI's payoff: a consumer sales and distribution channel
that fuels growth through word-of-mouth referrals.
Since the Maitland, Fla., company's inception in 1994, GTI's business
has soared - to an estimated $13 million this year on about $100
million of travel bookings - making it the nation's fastest-growing
travel company. How did the two founders come up with the idea? Five
years ago it started as a ploy to meet girls at American University,
where they were students. But they stayed in the travel business
after graduation and formed GTI after quitting corporate jobs. To
jump-start the company, they each plunked down $4,000 from their
credit cards and converted a janitor's closet in an office building
into a makeshift office. Recalls Gross, now GTI's president: "We
needed to secure an address so our firm could become licensed and
accredited by such groups as the Airline Reporting Corp." The
idea of using consumers as sales reps dawned on Warren, since they
had no staff. So the two contacted existing school clients and asked
them to sign on as independent contractors. Now GTI sells 500 tickets
a day (compared with 300 a month for the average agency) and employs
some 20,000 agents in 21 countries, from Argentina to Japan. As Chairman
Warren sums it up, "They are the GTI missionaries spreading
the word." *
* Highlights selected from Fortune, Volume 138, No. 10 • November
23, 1998
* As of August 2002 Global
Travel has over 40,000 Independent Travel Agents in 50
States and 85 Countries serviced by a team of over reservationists
and support staff in Florida. The current price for their
program is $299 with an annual renewal of $299.
