ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 8, 1996 TAG: 9612100015
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
Remember the Sugar Bowl? The final score, 28-10, blazing from the Louisiana Superdome scoreboard? The rowdy Hokies dancing through Bourbon Street celebrating Virginia Tech's victorious New Year?
The mad rush that University Travel owner Bill Ortega remembers was actually four weeks before the bowl game. On the Sunday it was announced that Tech would battle Texas, the 20 telephones he had set up in his agency began to ring continuously.
This year - two months ago, in fact - Ortega told a temporary hiring agency to line up people to man his 24 phones. A week before Tech pummeled the University of Virginia to boost its bowl chances, Ortega already had his team of "temps" at work, answering calls from fans prepared to head for the Gator Bowl.
This week, his staff is scrambling to make reservations farther south: Miami and the Orange Bowl.
Though the official word won't come down until later today, most travel agencies in and around Hokie-burg are prepared to handle the mayhem - and the money - of bowl fever.
They'll attract people like Buddy Russell, a true fan and former vice president for alumni relations at Tech. He and his family have made bowl trips an after-Christmas habit.
"It's a way to get together and celebrate Christmas with our family," he said.
Though he hasn't made travel arrangements yet, he plans to use a package deal that includes a charter flight, hotel and transportation. That might cost more than, say, driving, but Russell said he likes to travel with a large contingent of Hokies. Plus, it's easier.
"We're expecting it to be expensive because it's Florida, but with a charter all the details are worked out for you," he said.
Depending on the perks, package deals are costing anywhere from $600 to $1,200.
That's a bit too steep for Gwen Handy, who chartered a bus last year with her co-workers at Litton Poly-Scientific and plans to rent a van this year. If they survived 17 hours on the way to New Orleans, she figures, they can handle the equivalent to Miami.
Still, she worries about finding hotel rooms in either Miami or Fort Lauderdale. The Travel Company of Blacksburg is offering a package that includes a chartered bus and accommodations for about $300.
The one option seemingly not available to fans is commercial airline flights. Even for those who could care less about the Pro Player Stadium in its back yard, Miami is a popular destination for holiday vacations, cruise ships or stops on the way to South America. Agencies are quoting flight costs that can reach $600, and those are going fast.
But some fans who traveled to New Orleans last year on charter plane packages vividly remember hotel lobbies where they sat for up to two days waiting for flights canceled by fog.
Patty Cowley remembers all those images. Owner of Omni Travel & Tours, the Blacksburg travel consultant was stuck, too.
The charter company Cowley used to fly fans to the game had to cancel its return flight because of fog, then had to serve customers in other airports. Cowley's customers got stranded, and they got mad. They finally made it home, but only after a long two days.
Even with the problems last year, Cowley said she plans to use chartered flights again. She said last year was a learning experience; this year, she has taken precautions to ensure a smoother trip.
"What we did not do enough was let people know that travel in itself is an inherent risk. We can't control the weather."
This year, Cowley has selected a charter company that has control of the airplanes for an entire week, not just one day. That way, she said, travel plans will be more flexible - just in case.
Preparing for bowl travel is a huge cost to agencies. Ortega uses toll-free telephone lines, hires temporary workers and sends two or three people to help at each Florida hotel his company uses for the bowl.
Last year, Ortega put up a $50,000 deposit to reserve an entire hotel that he had to fill with Tech fans for the Sugar Bowl; charter planes cost about the same.
"When you get a volume of people, that's where the profit comes in." Ortega said he still isn't sure what kind of profit his agency made from the Sugar Bowl, though.
There is a definite advantage to getting into the bowl business.
"We usually slow down near the end of December, but this keeps us going through the New Year," Ortega said. Still, he said it's impossible to include bowl travel in projected budgets because the revenue is so uncertain.
"Last year, we thought we wouldn't go to a bowl, since we didn't know how well the team would do, but now it turns out they're doing better than ever," he said.
What about the possibility of Tech heading to the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona instead of to the Orange Bowl? With pricier hotels and three more hours in an airplane, Ortega said, fewer fans would be likely to travel to Tempi.
"I haven't priced that yet, and it scares me."
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