DATE: Wednesday, May 7, 1997                TAG: 9705070441

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DEBBIE MESSINA, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   62 lines

VACATION STORE MERGES WITH ANOTHER TRAVEL MARKETER

The Vacation Store, a mass-market travel agency, has merged with another leisure travel marketer, Fort Lauderdale-based 1-800-TAKE-OFF.

The union creates one of the nation's largest retailers of vacation packages.

The new company will continue to trade as The Vacation Store and will remain headquartered on Greenwich Road in Virginia Beach. It will use 1-800-TAKE-OFF's widely recognized toll-free number for reservations and information.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

``We want to be known nationally as the place to buy a vacation,'' said David Kaufman, chairman and chief executive officer of The Vacation Store, who is retaining his title. ``We want to be like Blockbuster is to the movie rental business.''

To help achieve this goal, The Vacation Store is considering buying other direct marketers of leisure travel.

``It's a huge industry that's very fragmented,'' Kaufman said. ``We're looking to leverage our marketing over a broad sales base by acquiring more agencies.''

The Vacation Store's management remains the majority owner of the merged company. Craig Roberts, formerly president of 1-800-TAKE-OFF, will become vice chairman of The Vacation Store. David Wolfe continues to be its president.

The Vacation Store employs about 100 people. 1-800-TAKE-OFF had contracted out its sales operations, and those workers will remain with their employer in various sales capacities, Kaufman said. 1-800-TAKE-OFF's only manager, besides Roberts, declined a position in Virginia Beach.

Roberts could not be reached Tuesday.

The Vacation Store has effectively doubled its customer base with the acquisition.

Its vacation offerings will expand by about 10 percent. While The Vacation Store sold resort vacations as well as cruises, 1-800-TAKEOFF was exclusively a cruise retailer.

Kaufman said that the company has been on track to double its sales to $40 million this year. With the merger that took effect this week, he expects sales to increase another 30 percent to 50 percent.

The agency offers hundreds of different vacation packages that range in price from a few hundred dollars to $50,000. The Caribbean, Mexico, Florida, Hawaii and Alaska are key destinations. It also sells cruises on cruise lines that include Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Holland America.

The new company will be stepping up its television exposure in the next few weeks, including a more aggressive presence on CNN Headline News and The Weather Channel, two strongholds for 1-800-TAKEOFF.

It's the second change in ownership for the 2-year-old company in the last six months.

In December, an investor group led by Kaufman and Wolfe purchased The Vacation Store from Landmark Communications Inc., a media conglomerate whose interests include The Virginian-Pilot. Landmark continues to have a minority stake.

The two men had come up with the idea for the agency while business associates in Britain.

Kaufman, a Hampton Roads native, was a senior vice president for Cunard Line, and Wolfe worked as a travel-management consultant in the United Kingdom before they convinced Landmark to start The Vacation Store and hire them to run it.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu