Expansion Plans

By Marilyn Green

Linda Price, MCC, started her travel career in the ski business in 1975. She has developed her work to the extent that she is carefully considering her next moves as a Tulsa, OK Home Based agency, Cruise Consultants.
“I used to do a lot of skiing with friends,” she said. “And when a shop needed help here, I got certified to fit skis. This developed into organizing and escorting ski tours in the Western U.S. and in Europe.”
She moved into general travel in the early 1980s and encountered her first cruise ship, Royal Caribbean’s Song of Norway. It was love at first experience. She ended up with a cruise-only business in Tulsa with a large consortium, working with them for seven years until 9/11.
“They had a very big brick-and-mortar business and they couldn’t keep it going with all the cancellations,” she said. “They closed and I took about a year to decide to run my own business from home. I had heard so much about Home Based Agencies at Travel Trade shows, and it worked out beautifully for me, even though I had never owned my own business.”
Price feels that she was lucky to live in Oklahoma, where there are fewer difficulties in getting licensing than in other states. “Joanie Ogg and NACTA helped me so much, and in the end it was quite easy, just one or two calls for licensing,” she added.
She was also lucky to have an extra room in her house where she could set up her office and many of the clients who had worked with her in the brick-and-mortar office had become friends. “I prefer it that way,” Price said. “I don’t just want to sign them up and forget about them.” These clients formed the core of her new business.
“Having good clients and keeping them is crucial,” she stated. “Word of mouth really works for me, and I want to be careful to limit my expansion and give very good personal service.”
She is calculating the amount of growth likely if she follows up on some of the ideas that appealed to her at Travel Trade’s Leisure Travel/Home Based/Winter CRUISE-A-THON conference held last month in Ft. Lauderdale.
“We have a lot of very active retirees,” she noted. “Many were forced into retirement by the oil industry and there are three new retirement communities here. I saw wonderful ideas for presentation, and nobody is doing this here. These people have good money and there is such a potential for escorted tours.”
Price may be able to expand in that direction without compromising on service. She has two independent contractors working with her, one the former manager of a Carlson Wagonlit agency. In addition, her daughter is interested in becoming a part of the business. “We can cover for each other, and I’d enjoy doing tours again,” she added.