Super Agents Combine Personal And Community Service

In an age when travelers can book an entire trip online and never speak or interact with a live human, travel agents are regaining market share in part because professionals like Roberta Mattice and Mary Lou Boal engage personally with their clients and communities.

Just a year after opening her agency, Journeys by Roberta, LLC, of Vista, CA, Roberta is producing more than $1.5 million in sales a year. She specializes in luxury cruises and tours, and has had particular success with lines like Oceania. “I know the product inside out,” she said.” I’ve toured the ships with [Oceania president and CEO] Bob Binder.”

As a result, she is able to communicate her passion about various aspects of Oceania’s product. “Their culinary skills on board are a big deal to my clients,” she said, and knowing the details give her an edge; her typical client has been with her for 20 years and 80% of her sales are repeat clients. “Luxury travelers don’t want to point and click. They want to talk.”

Mattice also builds connections by giving back extensively to her local community. She grew up in a military family in Alaska, where her parents invited troops far from home to their house for holiday meals. Now, in partnership with her sister, she founded and runs Operation America Cares, which works with community organizations to send more than 150 care packages a month to deployed troops around the world.

“Working from home allows me to be involved in my community and charity,” Mattice said. Some of the employees from a local Avoya Network office have come to help her put the packages together, and “sometimes they send a check to support the program financially,” she said.

Community service in Kentucky

In Madisonville, KY, meanwhile, Mary Lou Boal, a travel agent for more than 35 years, also focuses on connecting people through both her travel agency and her philanthropic efforts to help disaster victims far and wide. Her agency, Total Travel Service, specializes in international trips and Boal estimates that she has booked tours to more than 75 countries through her long career.

She doesn’t lead many groups any longer, “but when the mood strikes, she’ll still round up several friends to spend a week in a Tuscan villa,” said her daughter, Beverly McLean, director of social media for Covington Travel in Glen Allen, VA.

Allen Rudd, president, Rudd Insurance, Inc. Madisonville, KY, has booked multiple vacations and leisure travel with Boal’s agency for 30 years. “Mary Lou has a reputation for fair dealings in business and a big heart when it comes to helping people in need. I book with Mary Lou because she knows what she is doing and I enjoy doing business with people that do business with me.”

But it is Boal’s dedication to serving others in need that has been her lasting legacy, and helped her secure a loyal customer base.

There is her affection for Cambodia, where it’s estimated more than 40,000 people are amputees due to unexploded landmines. Boal has helped distribute more than 1,000 wheelchairs to the country and supports a local children’s hospital. Working through Free Wheelchair Mission, Boal addresses groups, and speaks to anyone who will listen. She still keeps a wheelchair in her garage to go on local roadshows to promote the foundation.

When the city of Baton Rouge was flooded last summer, Boal was at it again. In partnership with Todd’s Furniture, Legate’s Furniture World and King’s Great Buys Plus, she accepted monetary donations and gently used furniture to benefit those who were impacted. Since the local trucking company had pulled out of Madisonville, Mary Lou and her 80-year-old husband rented a box truck and drove the goods down themselves.

One year she started planting flowers, and getting other businesses to plant flowers all over the city. Now, every year, the city is beautiful. People see this as part of her legacy.

Boal refuses to take too much credit, deflecting instead to her neighbors and their willingness to respond time and again to her donation requests. “We have a giving and loving community,” she said.