DATE: Thursday, October 2, 1997             TAG: 9710020501

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DEBBIE MESSINA, STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   49 lines

THE VACATION STORE SOON WILL OFFER A TOOTHBRUSH TO GO WITH THAT PACKAGE

The Vacation Store, a mass-market travel agency, will open what may be the nation's first travel superstore that sells vacations as well as travel accessories.

The store will open in Hilltop East shopping center early next year. It will be associated with Travel 2000, which sells travel merchandise such as luggage, alarm clocks and toothbrush holders.

``This is a different way to buy travel,'' said David Wolfe, president of the Virginia Beach-based Vacation Store. ``We're going to create the fun aspects of going on vacation. Everything about it is going to be fun.''

The store will be decorated in vacation memorabilia. There will be glass tubes filled with sand from various tropical beaches. A vacation planning resource center will allow customers to relax with a cup of coffee and browse travel sites on the Internet and travel books.

There will even be a simulated airline seat so customers purchasing luggage can test whether if fits in the overhead compartment or under the seat.

And, of course, there will be a bank of sales agents to book trips.

``We think this is the first step toward a national expansion of this concept,'' said David Kaufman, the travel agency's chairman and chief executive officer.

``We will be doing quite a bit of local promotion, an activity we've not pursued before,'' Kaufman said. ``We want to enable people in the South Hampton Roads area to take advantage of our national presence and volume.''

Now, The Vacation Store only sells vacations by telephone through national cable television promotions. The company currently answers 2,000 calls a day.

The company's administrative offices and national sales force will move from Greenwich Road to the Hilltop store.

The Vacation Store will increase its sales force from 70 to 120 for the superstore.

The Vacation Store has been on track to double its sales to $40 million this year, Kaufman said. With the merger, he expects annual sales to increase an additional 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 lines that include Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Holland America.

In May, The Vacation Store merged with another leisure travel marketer, Fort Lauderdale-based 1-800-TAKE-OFF. The union created one of the nation's largest retailers of vacation packages.

It uses 1-800-TAKE-OFF's widely recognized toll-free number for reservations and information.

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