Fla. Travel Agency Is a Four-Generation Family Affair

While many small businesses have passed their ownership from generation to generation, it’s rare to find a travel agency that has done so as many times as Hill’s Travel Service in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Founded by Carroll “Pappy” Hill in 1930, the agency is now in the hands of the third and fourth generation – his granddaughter, Joan Bailey, and great granddaughter, Michelle Bailey DeVicnete.

In the 1930s, Hills Travel specialized in tours to Cuba and had a large number of corporate accounts. It went on to become a founding member of Allied Travel, the precursor to Virtuoso.

Still a Virtuoso affiliate, with four inside and four outside agents, Hill’s Travel Service now focuses largely on the leisure market, although it still retains some corporate business.

What is it like to work at an agency that’s been around for more than eight decades? And what have the two current mother-and-daughter owners learned from each other?

Travel Market Report set out to find out from Joan, age 58, and Michelle, who just turned 30.

How have you passed the torch?
Joan Bailey: After she graduated from college, my mother worked for my grandfather but then was not involved in the travel agency for a while. I started working for my grandfather in high school and in college worked for him fulltime, and my mother re-entered the agency as well.

When I graduated from college, I joined the business. My grandfather passed away about six months later, so it was a natural progression.

My dad was never involved, and my husband’s a banker. I have three sisters and two daughters. My other daughter is involved in the food service industry. She worked in the travel business in high school and college but decided it wasn’t for her.

What are some of the challenges in being a multigenerational agency?
Joan Bailey: In any sort of family business, it’s always challenging differentiating your familial roles from your business roles, and it’s difficult not to fall into the generational structure.

Maintaining a professional relationship or hierarchy that’s separate from the familial one is the challenge. One of the strengths of my mother was that she was willing to let us do the job that we functioned best in.

Our family has always gotten along quite well, but that’s not always the case with some families who run businesses.

What’s the most important thing you learned about running an agency from your grandfather?
Joan Bailey: That the personal relationship with the client is the most important thing. He was very attuned to that.

What’s the most important thing you’ve learned from your daughter?
Joan Bailey: Work-life balance. She’s better at balancing personal time and professional time. I would tend to be here 24/7.

What perspective does your daughter have that makes your travel agency a more viable business?
Joan Bailey: She’s a world citizen, because she had the advantage of traveling with us since she was very little. She has a much more global perspective. This helps her guide people of her generation to determine what they’d like to do in their travels and to help them discover what benefits travel offers.

Why did you decide to get involved in the family business?
Michelle Bailey DeVicente: I grew up in it, starting at two weeks. I was here at a nursery and worked in the summers all through school. I love travel and really got into the planning side of it, and liked that, and got into the accounting aspect of it and liked that as well.

What’s the most important thing you learned from your mom?
Michelle Bailey DeVicente: There are so many things. She’s so knowledgeable. I’ll sit here at my desk and listen to everything she tells her clients. She knows everything about every part of the business.

She’s really good at the customer service side. Sometimes she spends too much time with customers though – she holds their hands.

What’s the most important thing you learned from your grandmother?
Michelle Bailey DeVicente: She taught me more about work-life balance. She was never really involved in the travel planning side. She did a lot more of the administrative work. My mom will get here early in the morning and doesn’t leave until about 9 o’clock every night.

What do you think your mom learned from you?
Michelle Bailey DeVicente: To get out a little earlier. When we were little she would work until 10 or 11 o’clock at night. She’s a bit better at balancing now. She doesn’t come in on weekends as much as she used to.

How do you and your mom do things differently from a generational standpoint?
Michelle Bailey DeVicente: I don’t really think we do things that differently. We’re both very detail-oriented and really focus on customer service and helping the client. We believe that the customer’s always right and do everything possible to make their trips as pleasant as possible.

What do you bring to the table as a young agent? How is what you do different from the older generations you’ve worked with?
Michelle Bailey DeVicente: I bring a young perspective. I work with a lot of honeymoon couples and know what they want out of a honeymoon.

A lot of people of my generation like the type of travel where they’re rather free with their time. They don’t have every tour and excursion pinned down. Older people do want everything planned out, and that’s how the other agents in our office are used to doing things. It’s a little more laid-back type of travel.

Considering the fact that there aren’t many young travel agents out there, who is your professional support group?
Michelle Bailey DeVicente: We have a couple of leadership and young professional organizations here in town, including Leadership St. Pete (a division of the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce), and I go to a lot of their events. My husband is also on the board of the Morean Art Center, and it has a young professionals group that has events at local museums.