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Travel agency that’s been around for half a century says advertising is the key to success.
By Jeremy Oberstein

Published: January 4, 2009
For more than 50 years, Montrose Travel has weathered international calamity, national disaster and the current economic stalemate.

Despite the tumult, the local company has worked to organize lavish group trips around the globe and cheap getaways for young travelers all the while expanding through the years to become one of the nation’s most visible agencies with gross sales north of $110 million.

The agency has employed an aggressive marketing campaign and strong business model during its half-century of operation, but its ethos may be boiled down to a simple credo: "We still adamantly believe people are going to travel," said Nancy Bland, who heads the group travel portion of the company.

Montrose Travel was founded in 1956 but did not begin its heavy emphasis on growth until 1990, when Joe McClure and his sister Andi Mysza bought the company from their parents. At the time, 14 employees worked on vacation trips, mostly for individuals, out of their 2343 Honolulu Ave. office.

Since then, officials have dramatically expanded the business, purchasing three more office buildings on Montrose’s main business drag and hiring more than 100 workers to cover all aspects of the travel industry with a healthy profit margin each year of business.

The company hasn’t recorded a loss on its balance sheet since 1990, though events around the world have slowed travel in striking ways.

After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, national travel took a hit, with airports and agencies reporting declining profits. An outbreak of SARS, an acute respiratory disease the World Health Organization called a pandemic in 2004, also affected travel to Asia, where much of the disease had spread.

Many companies catering to tourists, facing the reality of declining profits and falling desire from travelers, scaled back advertising revenue and outreach programs in the wake of the calamitous events.

Montrose Travel flew in another direction, flooding local media outlets with advertisements as the company increased sales, percentage of car and hotel bookings, airline ticket sales, last-minute booking fees and commissions.

"We really emphasize marketing to get the word out there," Bland said.

In November 2001, the company recorded its best profit margin for that month of any year and, by 2004, had reversed the largely anti-travel trend after Sept. 11, 2001, reporting a surge in travelers to levels before the terrorist strikes in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., said Rhonda Holguin, the company’s general manager.

Now the company is facing another foe. Last month’s declaration from the federal government that the nation has been enveloped in a recession since 2007 confirmed the suspicions of many and drove home what has been a tough time for the travel agency, where most have reported losses of more than 20%.

Like other businesses that have been forced to reckon with a recession, Montrose Travel has been hit where it hurts. This year, business is down about 17% at the agency, though officials will not likely declare a loss for the 2008 calendar year, Holguin said.

While marketing has helped the company grow in times of strife, a stringent business model catering to the needs of individual travelers has also aided the surge of profits.

Agents are organized by their specialty — national travel deals are secured in one corner of the office, travel packages are finalized in another pocket, and worldwide cruises are worked on in the back of the building. Executives in the company’s three other buildings cater to marketing, information/technology and working with suppliers.

Group deals and individual voyages are also an area of focus with top executives heading up the different business models, such as Kate Bernier, who leads the honeymoon and leisure division, and Bland, who works on group trips.

"That type of diversity has really helped expand our growth," Bland said.

Next week, about 20 residents will depart from Los Angeles on a more than $6,000-per-person trip to London, specially designed for theater lovers largely unaffected by the economy, a package that Bland has put together for years.

The trip, an eight-night excursion to some of the city’s finest theaters with lodging at the ritzy Athenaeum Hotel, includes morning talks with Gordon Davidson, the founder of the Mark Taper Forum and a Tony Award winner.

The 20 travelers are "about the same as what he had last year," Bland said. "People that go on this trip aren’t affected by the economy as much as others."

Still, some travelers have curtailed travel plans with the economy faltering, Holguin said.

"If people used to go to Europe for three weeks, they’ll go for 10 days," she said. "And there has been some pickup in domestic travel."

Popular destinations of late have been Disneyland and the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. Relatively local trips, such as excursions to San Francisco and San Diego, have also netted a string of recent travelers, she said.

With the company’s ongoing growth, there has been talk of expanding to other locations, such as in Orange County.

"But we decided not to do that," Bland said. "We felt it was much better to have things right here. With the world using [toll-free phone] numbers and the Internet, there was no need. Having everything right here in one place has really been beneficial.

"We’re not going anywhere."