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Ticket to travel fame
By STEVE HUETTEL, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- From his Davis Islands office, Greg Tepper opens doors usually closed to tourists in Russia, from the KGB museum in Moscow to backstage at the former Kirov Theater. Downstairs in the same office building, Nichole Beattie works inside sources in India and the Middle East for clients. She recently arranged for trustees of the Art Institute of Chicago to view jade and bronze collections in private homes in India. And in St. Petersburg, Rebecca Falkenberry, a former university professor, knows the best place to stay after hiking through the Andes to Peru's Macchu Piccu ruins and other nature and wildlife trips around the globe. The three were named among the nation's 112 best travel agents in last month's issue of Conde Nast Traveler magazine. They also represent the trend of travel retailers toward specialization. With most airlines eliminating commissions, travel agents have turned to niche markets -- selling knowledge about places or types of travel, said Bill Maloney, executive vice president of the American Society of Travel Agents. "The days of the main street generalist are over for most businesses," he said. "Everyone is into specialization. It's about making a market between the consumers who need you and the suppliers who want you." Some agents target relatively large segments of the travel business, such as tours for seniors, family vacations, church or gay and lesbian groups. Tepper, Beattie and Falkenberry have staked out much narrower slices of the market: people with very specific geographical interests and lots of money to spend indulging them. How much? On average, between $400 and $500 a day per person -- plus airfare and most meals -- for a group tour. For custom-made itineraries, add about 25 percent. "We don't do Rome, Paris and London," said Beattie, director of Middle East and special programs at tour operator Cox & Kings' U.S. office in Tampa. "It's the person who's well-traveled, well-educated with a certain level of income that we go to. And they find us." Tepper and Beattie aren't actually travel agents. They are high-end tour operators who market directly to consumers and also arrange trips and events that become part of package tours sold by travel agents. Tepper's company, Exeter International, arranged a gala dinner in St. Petersburg, Russia's, largest palace. It was the finale of a Baltic cruise that the Mexican arm of Ford Motor Co. put on for its highest-producing vehicle sellers. Besides the champagne reception and three-course dinner, guests were treated to a musical smorgasbord: Russian folk music, opera, a full orchestra and a salsa band of musicians who didn't speak a word of Spanish. Exeter and Cox & Kings share a building that looks from the outside like the law office it was before the companies bought it. Virtually all their business is conducted by phone, fax or Internet. Tepper can't remember the last time he had a client in the office. Most of Exeter's 1,500 clients a year are in big cities; only about 2 percent live in the Tampa Bay area. Falkenberry works in a more conventional retail setting, Hill's Travel Service in St. Petersburg. Travel brochures are stacked on wall racks and customers occasionally walk in to buy last-minute airline tickets. But her clientele also is decidedly high-end, many attracted by her reputation as an expert on nature and wildlife trips. That still leaves her lots of room to search the globe. "This morning, in my head I've been in the Galapagos, Baja Peninsula, China, on cruises in Italy and Costa Rica," Falkenberry said. "For any phone call, they halfway expect you to be an expert in what you're talking about." She worked 27 years as a professor at the University of Alabama in Birmingham teaching a mix of urban planning, political science and environmental issues. Falkenberry served six years on the Sierra Club's national board. She also traveled a lot, including trips down the Amazon River and treks through Nepal and Tibet. She was 51 when a friend convinced her to do travel "from the inside." Tepper and Beattie also started in different careers. He studied Russian at William & Mary but worked in finance before chucking the corporate world to live in Russia for a year. He saw opportunity as a tour operator when the state-run tourist agency, Intourist, broke up. Beattie was a hospital administrator before marrying a renowned cancer specialist in New York. He treated top Indian government officials and traveled with her there and throughout the Middle East. Cox & Kings approached her about reopening its U.S. office. "They said: 'Gosh, you've been to India, you survived India and you actually like it,' " Beattie said. She and Tepper say their big advantage is knowing people abroad who can let their clients into places where tourists usually aren't permitted. Tepper's connections in Russia know Exeter has a sophisticated clientele that won't wear tank tops or take flash photos backstage during a ballet at the former Kirov, now the Mariinski Theater in St. Petersburg. "It's not who you know," Beattie says, "it's who knows you." -- Steve Huettel can be reached at (813) 226-3384 or at huettel@sptimes.com.
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From the Times Business report
From the AP
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