Meet Gloria Goodwin: Reinvention Is Her Secret
by Harvey ChipkinGloria Goodwin, owner of GiGi Travel in Brooklyn, N.Y., has reinvented herself multiple times in her nearly 40 years as a travel agent – changing as the industry has changed and as the travel interests of her core market of African Americans have evolved.
Goodwin was an accidental travel agent. She had a career at Western Union but then found herself without a job. In 1975 a storefront travel agency in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, where she grew up, offered her a position. She had no travel experience but took it on.
 |
Within six months – working six days a week instead of five – she was named manager.
From manager to owner
Shortly after, the owner said he wanted to sell the business to Goodwin. Her father told her she would be out of her mind to buy the agency, urging her to get “a real job.” She went against his wishes and purchased the agency on a monthly payment plan.
Goodwin changed the agency name to GiGi Travel and adopted the motto, “We take you there in style.”
Early days were tough. Previous clients would come in – most of the business was walk-in – see that the previous owners had left and walk out again. So it was necessary to build a new clientele.
Air travel to the Caribbean
With two partners, Goodwin began building relationships with local people. “At the time air tickets were our gravy – a lot of them for West Indians traveling back and forth to the islands,” she said.
“We also did groups, like the Vulcans, the black firemen’s society, and churches and clubs.
“At one point there were three Holland America ships in New York, and I did well booking groups with them. At one point, with my one storefront, we were number 100-something among top Holland America agencies in the country.”
Upsizing – and downsizing
Goodwin did well, employing as many as four or five agents, and she and her partners moved the business to a building across the street.
However, those were the years that airline commissions dried up and she had to downsize to just one or two employees.
Her West Indian client base changed too. “We no longer had the ‘homies’ going home; they either went back to the islands to stay or died out. The new generation of Caribbean people wanted to visit other places.”
Reinvention
Soon, like many agents, Goodwin grew tired of maintaining a storefront business in an office that had become too big for her small staff. “I decided I needed to change. I read something by [sales consultant] Mike Marchev who said it takes 365 days to reinvent yourself, and I said that’s what I’m going to do.”
She moved to a home office, and her two staff members continued to work with her but on a commission-only basis.
Around that time, Goodwin landed a solid piece of business. An Egyptologist named Dr. Ben who had a large following among African American travelers turned his group business over to her. “It was excellent business and a feather in my cap.
“That specialty continued with Dr. Ben and then another scholar, right up until the Arab spring cast a pall over travel to Egypt.” Today clients are not interested in Egypt, she said.
A new specialty . . .
So Goodwin reinvented herself again and focused on sending groups elsewhere in Africa including to South Africa, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. “African Americans really want to see their history up close,” she said.
Meanwhile, in another reinvention, Goodwin spent eight years teaching how to sell travel at Medgar Evers College, part of the City University of New York. She has written three manuals on selling travel from home, and she still teaches privately in her home.
. . . and a new partnership
These days, Goodwin is moving to adapt again. She has partnered with Miriam Padilla from M Travel to grow and expand custom group trips. “She has the technology skills and I am bringing the experience so we are a good team.”
In November the two gave their first travel talk, and they have another scheduled for the spring. “We bring previous clients to a community center and ask them to bring a friend. We bring in experts and have some music.
“We ask people to write their name and their dream trip and throw it in a bucket, so it’s literally a bucket list. Then we contact them afterward to show how they can achieve their dreams.”
Looking ahead, Goodwin has no plans to leave the business. “I will keep at it. My last group came back from South Africa and said that if I ever talked about retiring they would be very angry.”
