AMG’s Rick Mazza Presented with Lifetime Achievement Award From ASTA

ASTA bestowed its Lifetime Achievement Award on A.J. (Rick) Mazza, founder, president and CEO of American Marketing Group (AMG), the parent company of 19 highly successful travel brands, including Travel Market Report and three travel agency networks (TRAVELSAVERS, NEST, and the Affluent Traveler Collection).

The Lifetime Achievement Award is not an annual award; it is recommended periodically by ASTA’s board of directors to honor a travel industry luminary “whose creativity, dedication and inspiration have advanced the travel and tourism industry,” said Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg, co-President and co-Owner of Valerie Wilson Travel and member of the ASTA Corporate Advisory Council, who introduced Mazza.

A 50-year veteran of the travel industry, Mazza founded AMG as a way to service the travel agency community. AMG encompasses the first marketing group for travel agents (TRAVELSAVERS) and the first and only marketing group for independent homebased agencies (NEST); the digital publication Travel Market Report, an independent voice for travel  agents, and 17 other companies that support the profitability and growth of retail travel agents and agencies.

‘A great visionary’
Among those congratulating Mazza was Gavin Tollman, CEO of Trafalgar Travel. Tollman called Mazza “a great visionary of our industry, a true icon in every sense of the word. Your achievements are nothing short of remarkable.”

Arnold Donald, CEO and president of Carnival Corp., said to Mazza, “This is a recognition of your career lifetime achievement but also a recognition of the many lives you’ve touched.”

Frank Del Rio, CEO and president of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, said that Mazza was intricate in getting Oceania to its current level of success.

“I’ll never forget that in the early days of Oceania, you were one of the few who believed in my concept early on and I can look you in the eye and tell you that if it wasn’t for others like you, perhaps my dream would not have come true.”

At Royal Caribbean International, senior vice president of sales, trade support and service Vicki Freed called the recognition well-deserved. “You’ve dedicated your life to our industry and you’ve made us a better industry,” Freed told Mazza.

Mazza watching his son, Jim Mazza, during the award ceremony.

Bold new concept
When Mazza founded TRAVELSAVERS in 1970, he launched a bold, new concept and business model, organizing independent agencies into a cooperative, offering them support and leveraging their buying power to allow the group to compete successfully against large agencies. Mazza has since guided TRAVELSAVERS to become an international travel marketing organization with a retail chain of more than 3,200 independently owned, full-service travel agencies in 27 countries.

Always in search of ways to help retail agents prosper, Mazza next launched NEST, providing support to a new generation of travel sellers who wanted to have their own brands, maintain their own client lists, and have their own direct supplier relationships.

He also created the Affluent Traveler Collection as a platform for elite agents focused on the fast-growing luxury segment.

Most recently, Mazza launched Travel Market Report, an online publication and e-newsletter that serves as a unified, independent voice for all members of the travel agency channel, sharing the concerns of travel professionals, offering daily news to help them grow their businesses, and keeping them front of mind among suppliers as a vital and growing distribution channel.

TMR did not accept advertising for almost five years, in an effort to bring together all agencies and consortia in one voice without the worry of the advertisers; today it has more than 40,000 subscribers.

In growing AMG, Mazza’s guiding principle always has been to support independent retail travel agencies. Today, AMG companies together generate more than $20 billion in annual sales.

Mazza’s travel agency roots
Mazza started his career as a travel agent and owner of a successful travel agency in his hometown of Brooklyn, NY, and co-founded the American Travel Affairs Council (ATAC).

Following the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and in recognition of the fact that nearly one in 10 jobs worldwide is connected to the travel industry, Mazza helped in an industrywide promotion to get consumers traveling again. He has received numerous awards and honors throughout his distinguished career for his work and dedication to the travel industry.

Past winners of ASTA’s Lifetime Achievement award are: Tom Comlin (2008), Dave Stockart (2007), Francis Goranin (2003), Daryl Thrasher (2001), Don Daly (1996), H.G. “Red” MacKenzie (1994) and H. Whitley Hawkins (1993).