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Gloria Bohan
Bohan is president, CEO and founder of Omega World Travel.
I was in Ireland on 9/11, playing golf at the Tralee Golf Club with a
group of golfers. It was a beautiful, sunny day. I came back to the U.S.
several days later, not knowing quite what to expect.
It is a brave new world for travelers now. After the attacks, with the
airlines having so much trouble, we saw so much need from customers asking
for help. It was as if we had changed from a travel management company
negotiating air fares to something more. It became "What are you
doing to help protect us because we have to travel?"
On the security side, just keeping people advised on new security regulations
has forced all agents to communicate better and in different ways. We're
more a part of that Blackberry culture now, and we are acting more like
consultants, offering help instead of just acting as a travel manager.
A whole different realm of issues has emerged over these past five years.
Sept. 11 occurred as we were seeing significant growth of the online travel
agencies, with the purchase of airline tickets becoming commoditized.
But with the need for customers to make changes because of airport delays
or being shut down over security incidents, even the online agencies saw
that they could not be just an online portal, and they morphed into something
more like full-service agencies. Even customers going online see the need
for more services, and I think that is one post-9/11 development that
will continue.
We still see crowded planes and security problems, and whether it is a
terrorist plot in London or a hurricane in the Caribbean, we know we have
customers who want more help. People are feeling a need for the personal
touch to help them wade through the inconveniences travel presents. International
travel, in particular, has become a very big deal. Online products are
very confusing, even for my sharpest customers. So, we are doing a lot
more personal service, finding the appropriate car service, the good restaurant
or where to go for business services in Brussels, for instance. We have
gotten more and more of that. Things have changed. It is a very new, very
dynamic environment since 9/11.
About Omega World Travel
Recognized in the diversity field as the nation’s top woman-owned
business, Fairfax, Va.-based Omega World Travel (OmegaTravel.com) was
launched by Founder and President Gloria Bohan as an independent travel
agency in 1972. Now ranked by Business Travel News as the number two private
travel management company in the U.S., over 1100 employees provide online
travel solutions—as well as personalized service at 200 locations
in 70 countries worldwide—to a diverse clientele: from individual
leisure travelers to Fortune 500 enterprises and the federal government.
Omega World Travel owns TravTech Inc. (TravTech.com),
a travel technology provider, and Cruise.com, one of the Internet’s
largest cruise specialists.
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