Ready for Its Close-Up: This Agency Does Celebrity Travel

Ultra-tight and ever-shifting schedules, privacy protection, and luxury expectations are the potent mix that Los Angeles-based Bruvion Travel & Concierge juggles 24/7 for celebrity clients.

“Celebrities and entertainment people are used to a certain level of hand-holding and service,” according to Jason Couvillion, a partner in Bruvion, a Virtuoso agency.

“In regular travel, you don’t have people using aliases or who have to go in the hotel garage entrance instead of going through the lobby,” he said.

You’re dealing with someone the public recognizes, [who goes] to the airport, and can be mobbed. It’s our job to prevent that.”

Listening plus. . .
Couvillion, with partners Ken Bruce and John Rukavina, operate Bruvion’s Sunset Strip flagship location with 12 agents. Their Nashville and New York offices have single agents and there’s a Bruvion London affiliate to facilitate European tours and travel.

As in any agency, Bruvion agents listen to clients to determine their needs and preferences.

But at Bruvion additional time is spent educating these special clients–whether a celebrity, production manager, tour manager or assistant–as to what the famous people, the entourage, and the crew may need to get to their destination and on to the tour or set without being mobbed.

The challenges
Challenges are constant for Bruvion, whose clients have included Cher’s Living Proof Farewell Tour, Pink’s Truth About Love Tour, Taylor Swift, Tina Turner, and Billy Idol.

The agency’s business comes from film and music productions for commercial television as well as entertainment management companies, agencies, fashion companies, and individual celebrities.

Production schedules are never set in stone, and public relations appearances involving the press are beset with variables.

An artist may suddenly be in demand for an immediate appearance with a television host on Ellen or Jimmy Fallon. That means what would have been one airline routing requires another.

“The hoops that we encounter on daily basis are really more because of vendors than the clients,” said Rukavina, who brought in Winona Ryder, the agency’s first client, many years ago.

Working with airlines
Dealing with airlines also makes celebrity travel a more time consuming process.

Rukavina and Couvillion are on Delta’s Entertainment Advisory Board and credit that carrier with making changes that work for their clients.

They also applaud the airline’s continued use of wide-body aircraft—“larger, international-style planes”—flying Los Angeles to New York, a route routinely used by celebrities.

Then there’s the hotels
Hotels are another challenge. Bruce cites the Toronto Film Festival as an example.

“A lot of talent and the studios don’t know if their film is going to be screened until close into September,” Bruce said. “Hotels have been booked six months in advance.

“Fortunately, with our long-time contacts with Ritz-Carlton and other hotel collections, we’re able to clear space at the last minute,” he added. “So, we have to rely on the airlines and hotels to be flexible and let us change at the last minute.”

Budget requirements
Despite the quicksand nature of schedule changes and re-routing, “There is a budget,” Bruce said.

“With a concert tour, we’re given the routing, the number of cities, and a budget that includes the artists, band group, crew and the numbers of people,” he said. “We give them options and always ask for concessions from the group’s hotel.”

Good supplier connections, especially with hotels, are paramount. With a group, one or two people are upgraded to VIP status.

Arranging personal travel
Some celebrities also call on Bruvion to book their vacations.

Couvillion sometimes books the assistants’ own travel and doesn’t charge fees, “because I want them to have a good personal experience with us and, help them out as well, like if they need a flight home to see parents.

“We’re not so big we won’t do that kind of stuff.”

Not a nine to five
Years ago, the partners realized they faced yet another challenge: Everyone was working every weekend, literally 24/7.

Their solution? An on-call weekend agent who knows the business and clients, because clients get used to dealing with a particular agent on weekend.

Their most recent tweak is having one agent who works Sunday through Thursday and another who’s on duty Tuesday through Saturday.

There’s a “selfish” motive to indulge, admitted Bruce.

Productions run from about April to November, and then the production people move on. “Part of our business growth has been word of mouth; production people going to the [next] production company and saying, ‘Bruvion is our travel agency,’” said Bruce.

Labor of love
In the end, arranging travel for celebrities can be a labor of love, Bruce said.

“Individual artists are usually nice and we try to develop a relationship with them,” Couvillion said. “We’re taking care of them. We want our relationship to be with them.

“They do have a lot of handlers around them. Agents, managers, assistants and those people can be more intense than the celebrities themselves,” he added.

“I’m sure it’s because they have to answer to any issues that come up. [But the] artists are nice, appreciate us, and refer people to us.”