September 11-17, 1998
Global Travel: No Reservations About
Strategies for Success
It all stared with a computer and a dream.
Randall Warren and Michael Gross were roommates at American University
12 years ago. Blessed with an adventurous soul, Warren often would
make reservations on his computer in their dorm room in search of low
fares.
Through "word-of-mouth", he had started making reservations
for sorority girls in search of vacation spots for Spring Break. Gross
and Warren then began making reservations for most of the campus,
earning the label of the "unofficial travel agency at American
University."
Gross went on to graduate from law school and soon realized, "If
law school taught me anything, it's that I didn't want to be an
attorney," he says.
Warren, meanwhile, got his master's in accounting, but still had a
yearning for the travel life. He called Gross one day and proposed the
radical idea of starting an innovative travel agency.
Gross accepted.
Global Travel International officially began in 1994 with only Gross
and Warren working from a rented maintenance closet.
The maintenance closet soon expanded to 20,000 square feet, and the
two employees have increased to over 120 employees. Warren is now the
chairman of Global Travel, and Gross is president.
Just how far the duo have come can be seen in the company's ranking on
the 1998 Golden 100 list.
Global Travel International ranks No. 15 in the Orlando Business
Journal's Golden 100, posting most recent fiscal year revenue of $100
million, a whopping 298.4 percent increase over the year before, when
GTI saw revenue of $25.1 million.
Global Travel currently has two locations - one in Maitland and a
reservations center in Orlando, where there are an additional 70
agents. *
In addition, the company has almost 20,000 networking independent
travel agencies that answer an average of 2,000 calls per day. These
independent agencies generate the business the travel agency receives,
by spreading the word about Global Travel. Global Travel then performs
the grass-roots work of making the reservations and taking care of
other travel needs. *
Gross believes that "Global Travel International is unique
because of our philosophy: inventing the future." The duo is
striving to be the premier travel agency, one that can provide the
best savings at the best price.
In terms of future growth, Warren says the company's ultimate goal
"would be to group ourselves in the ranks of American
Express."
Five years from now, they would like to be up to anywhere from a
half-billion to a billion dollars in sales.
At Global Travel International, Warren and Gross insist they look at
the world differently by being creative and proving themselves to be
innovative by their unique advertising methods: strictly word-of
mouth.
They believe this technique works the best, because of the fact that
clients will trust the people that they know. Because of this, they
view themselves as a marketing company wrapped around a travel agency.
John Andrews, national account executive for Amadeus, which provided
Global Travel with its computer technology, says this about their
success: "They are innovative, and they are the leaders in the
industry that's ever so changing." He also believes their success
is attributed to the fact that they are not afraid to use the
technology that's available to them.
One of the challenges that Warren and Gross have faced in the travel
industry is trying to balance their growth. They feel that they need
to be conservative enough to not overextend themselves, while being
aggressive enough to push themselves forward.
They also find that a great challenge is trying to get people to look
at the world the same way they do.
But the biggest challenge is finding good employees. Warren always has
insisted that they not only have good people, but they have great
people working at Global Travel.
Working so closely together, the duo is bound to have disagreements,
they say, but they do not last for long, as their mutual respect for
one another comes into play.
When asked what makes Global Travel International so successful. Gross
says "We agree to disagree."
* Highlights selected from Orlando Business Journal, September 11-17,
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 $495 with an annual
renewal of $129.
