Travel on the Installment Plan: One Agent’s Unique Idea
by Cheryl Rosen /This is a tale about a small-town girl who, before her 30th birthday, turned a unique idea and a bent for philanthropy into a travel business with 200,000 clients.
For Ileaa Swift, it all started, as it does for many travel agents, with a love of travel and a hobby booking trips for friends and family.
But as the recession took hold in her home town of Little Rock, Ark., Swift noted the many friends and family members who could no longer afford the family reunions and company meetings she had once planned for them.
So two years ago, when the 27-year-old took up travel as a full-time profession, she determined not to leave anyone behind.
Unique business model
Swift had been in talks at the time with a large travel company to become a franchisee.
She pitched the idea of offering clients a payment plan, like the installment plans offered by many local stores. When the company balked, she pulled her application and went off on her own to establish Swift Travel Deals.
Today, Swift credits her unique financing option—along with her social-media presence—with putting her in touch with a quarter of a million people.
Although many have not yet booked a trip with her, she believes it’s just a matter of time before they do.
Swift Travel Deals doesn’t charge any interest fees or require credit checks or pre-determined payments. Travelers have the option to pay as they like until final payment is due or be placed on a monthly plan for budgeting purposes.
Bills must be paid in full 30 to 45 days in advance of departure.
Swift declined to disclose her exact sales figures, but said that more than half of her clients take advantage of her payment plan.
Her agents offer reminders and, occasionally, a nudge.
Not a problem
“Everything is very structured,” said Swift. “Most clients are on monthly automatic-payments. We send out reminders, and if we have to, we will get on the phone.
“It’s not a lot of chaos. And we’ve never had a client who didn’t pay in full.”
Clients on the installment plan can book family vacations to Disney World, cruises, even business meetings and incentives—anything but air tickets although Swift is now working on offering that as well.
Over her own eight years of travel, Swift has built a network of 105 travel agents around the world who refer clients to her in return for a commission and other perks.
She met many of these agents simply by talking with people whose towns and villages she passed through in her own travels.
Giving back
Beginning next year, Swift will be headed back to some of those towns.
Touched by the poverty she has witnessed, she’s now putting together a Travel with a Purpose Program, a series of trips that will be part vacation and part giving back, from cleaning beaches to volunteering at orphanages to working at animal-rescue centers.
“When you are on vacation you arrive at the airport and go through the city, and sometimes the city is really poor, and then you get to this beautiful resort,” Swift said.
“My husband and I would go speak with the local people and just listening to their stories and seeing how they live, I felt like I wanted to do something to help.”
For Swift, part of the draw of being an entrepreneur also lies in her ability to help improve her own employes’ standard of living.
“I’m into female empowerment – the power of women to find ways to improve their lives,” Swift said. “I have agents all around the world. We have no offices, just phones and computers, but we talk every day and we have this connection.
“We’re all just travel agents, but we are trying to do something bigger.”