THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 25, 1995 TAG: 9502250198
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
No longer content with just showing people how to go places, Landmark Communications Inc. executives figured they might as well try to sell travel, too.
That, basically, is what's behind the launch of The Vacation Store. It's the latest in a growing roster of travel-related businesses for Norfolk-based Landmark, parent of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star.
The Vacation Store, which opens for business Monday, is a marketer of vacation packages. From an office on Greenwich Road in Virginia Beach, it plans to sell vacations coast-to-coast and will advertise them, among other places, on The Travel Channel, a Landmark cable network.
David Kaufman, the store's chief executive officer, described the venture as a mass-market travel agency.
``If somebody wants to go backpacking in the Himalayas, I might like to join them,'' he said, ``but I don't think I'll be able to sell them a vacation.''
Kaufman said that the store's initial 50 vacations were chosen to fit the pleasure-travel desires of 90 percent of Americans. They include cruises, resort stays and trips to many of the nation's travel hot spots, including New York, New Orleans and Washington. Prices for the vacations will range from $400 to $20,000 per person.
Kaufman, 39, grew up in a family that has been prominent in Hampton Roads business and civic endeavors since the 1920s. After earning an MBA from the University of Michigan, he worked as a manager for IBM Corp. and then as an executive for Cunard Line Ltd., the big British shipping company whose fleet includes the famous Queen Elizabeth 2.
As a senior vice president of Cunard Line in late 1993, Kaufman was in charge of day-to-day operations for a nearly $1 billion-a-year company and more than 3,000 employees. But he said he felt an urge to do something entrepreneurial.
He and a British friend, David Wolfe, a travel-management consultant, developed the idea for The Vacation Store and then approached executives of The Travel Channel in Atlanta. That led to meetings in early 1994 at Landmark's Norfolk headquarters and a decision by the company to become the 100 percent owner of the venture. Wolfe, 32, joined on as chief operating officer.
Landmark has been focusing increasingly on travel since its purchase of The Travel Channel from Trans World Airlines three years ago. Since then, it has beefed up the programming for the cable network and pushed up subscribership by a couple of million, to about 20 million households nationwide. Now it's considering expanding the network into Latin America.
Last year, Landmark launched a separate European network called ``travel,'' which has been growing rapidly.
Kaufman and Wolfe declined to say how much Landmark will invest in its latest startup, but it appears considerable. The Vacation Store is beginning with about 60 employees, a large percentage of whom have experience in the travel business. It also plans to produce more than 50 half-hour shows a year spotlighting its travel destinations. The shows will fill three time slots each day on The Travel Channel.
Kaufman and his crew have signed commitments from more than 20 national travel providers, including American Airlines, Holiday Inn, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line and Walt Disney Co.
Kaufman said that the store's launch is part of a trend in the travel business toward ``remote selling'' of vacations. More and more people are willing to bypass visits to travel agencies and book instead by calling in response to TV ads or direct mail, he said. Computer on-line bookings are also on the rise and Kaufman said that The Vacation Store will bank on that as well. It plans to establish a sales counter on the Internet, the global web of computer networks.
The Vacation Store's closest competitor appears to be San Francisco-based Preview Media Inc. It sells vacation packages through a program aired on TV stations in 10 of the nation's largest metro areas. Earlier this month, Preview formed an alliance with America Online Inc. to offer an interactive version of that show on AOL's computer service.
Meanwhile, CI Travel, the largest Hampton Roads-based travel agency, said Friday that it signed a deal with another Landmark subsidiary, InfiNet L.C., to offer travel information and take bookings through the Internet.
``I believe sometime in the future we will be able to set up an office anywhere in the world by finding the local Internet provider and hook up,'' said Barbara O'Leary, Norfolk-based CI's director of public relations and special projects.
For remote selling to prosper, staying open is important. So customer-service reps will be available to answer calls to The Vacation Store's toll-free number 24 hours a day.
One delicate issue for the venture is relations with other travel agents. While it is a member of the American Society of Travel Agents and plans to pay 10 percent commissions to other agents who book its vacations for clients, Kaufman said that the store won't go out of its way to market other agents.
Its main focus, he said, will be on selling directly to vacationers themselves.
``I feel they ought to be doing everything to wine and dine us, too,'' said Eloise Myers, owner of Norfolk's Moore Travel Inc. and head of the Virginia subchapter of the travel agents society. ``That way, I can tell clients, `I can sell anything you see on The Travel Channel.' '' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Martin Smith-Rodden, Staff
David Wolfe, left, and David Kaufman, chief executive officer,
developed the idea for The Vacation Store
KEYWORDS: VACATION STORE by CNB