TMC Founder Bets on I-Logistics Venture

Custom Travel Solutions team, from right:  Ramel Gutierrez, Lauren Brozic, Beth Gardner, Dan McLean. Photo: Custom Travel Solutions 

Travel agency owner Beth Gardner doesn’t come across as a betting woman. But these days she is betting one thing—that her agency, Custom Travel Solutions, will see its sales volume jump more than 10% this year. For the $94 million Canadian company, it would mean a hefty boost to the bottom line.

Gardner is president and CEO of Custom Travel Solutions, a corporate-focused agency she founded in Calgary in 1995.

Her optimism about this year’s growth is rooted in a still-young venture called I-Logistics. The division serves businesses that move large groups of workers to remote sites, typically in industries such as oil and gas, mining, and forestry.

I-Logistics is an automated solution that creates single itineraries for complex bookings that can include commercial and charter flights, helicopter and bus transportation, and remote camp accommodations.

12,000 crew members weekly
“We have proposals out to three very large projects. If we land even one of these big projects, it will be much more significant than 10% [growth],” she told Travel Market Report. One proposal went to an oil and gas company that needs to move 12,000 crew members every week. “Right now, these companies are working on spreadsheets.”

It’s the kind of bold venture that has earned Gardner numerous accolades and awards. In 2015, she was named one of Calgary’s Top 20 Business Leaders by Business in Calgary. A year earlier, she was chosen as one of Canada’s top women entrepreneurs by Canadian publications Profit, Canadian Business, and Chatelaine.

Beyond corporate
Custom Travel Solutions derives 85% of its volume from corporate travel, but recently Gardner has focused on pumping up business for a leisure-focused office located in Canmore, Alberta.

The firm’s groups department is also growing, and a couple of years ago it partnered with Alberta radio stations on a successful charter trip to Nashville that featured private concerts by country artists.

To address staffing needs, Custom Travel Solutions has partnered with a post-secondary school in Calgary to provide hands-on travel agency experience to students in the school’s tourism program.

Gardner is a Calgary native who got her start in travel at age 18, when she landed a job working in the travel department of an oil and gas company in the small town of Tuktoyaktuk in the Northwest Territories.

Travel Market Report spoke with Gardner by phone.

What’s the key to success for travel management companies today?
Gardner: Number one is customer-service excellence. It’s basically always going above and beyond, whether it be for a crew member or the CEO of one of our corporate clients. It is building relationships at every level within our company to our clientele.

Can you give us an example?
Gardner: We have one of the national TV stations as a corporate account. That team of agents rotates weekends, where they go in and upgrade our clients for their flights. The staff does it willingly; they actually offered to do it.

How else does Custom Travel Solutions differentiate itself in customer service?
Gardner: We have implemented a number of key indicators to measure our customer service. On every itinerary that goes to a traveler there’s a link to a quick 10-question survey. It measures how likely they are to recommend Custom Travel and whether they were completely satisfied with the service. In the last quarter we have been consistently at 92% or higher of “completely satisfied” with our service.

You attribute your success to your staff. What’s the secret to quality staffing?
Gardner: It’s the culture I have built from Day One. You’ll hear my staff talking about how it’s a family environment. I have always pushed that family comes first, so if they have a family emergency, we can cover the time they need to be away. If they have children in sports, I have no problem with them attending soccer games or swim meets, because I know they will in some way make up the time. It’s a work-life balance that has to happen.

I have an open-door policy. I listen to suggestions from any of my staff. What makes it such a great company is that everybody shares the same vision.

How do you make that happen, especially when 85% of your staff work from home?
Gardner: By rewarding people. And when I get comments from my clients, I absolutely share them with the entire staff, and it inspires everybody to take another step up. Also, I am very empathetic with my staff. I listen and coach; I don’t wag my finger at them.

What do you love about retail travel? What makes it meaningful?
Gardner: I still dabble in some of the leisure groups and leisure bookings. It’s the joy of making somebody’s dream come true.

And on the corporate side?
Gardner: In the past year, we have had a handful of people who have left our corporate clients and gone to work for other companies. We are one of their first phone calls to manage the travel program of their new company. That’s extremely rewarding.

What drives you crazy about the retail travel business?
Gardner: The lack of revenue, and the suppliers constantly changing their commission structures downwards. It’s getting more and more difficult. That drives me crazy.