Episode 23: Richard Engle of Global Travel Collection

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Journeys Profile Podcast. I'm joined today by Richard, an independent contractor with Global Travel Collection. Richard, you're very welcome. Thank you. Nice to be with you, Ewan. Richard, thank you for joining us. Now, can you first of all tell us about you? What's your background? How do you get into travel? And then we'll come to you, the organization, in a moment. Okay. Well, my background goes pretty far back. I started my own travel agency when I was about 21 years old.

[00:00:27] And that was actually in the late 1970s, before we had email, internet, anything that we use today. Our number one product was the airline ticket. Airlines played fairly with us and we played fairly with them. They paid us to do a job. We sat and hand wrote tickets and called in reservations on the telephone. Over the years, the airline ticket became our number one problem instead of our number one product.

[00:00:54] So, the industry shifted so much that those of us who were around at that time and are still around today mostly became luxury travel advisors because we knew what we were doing as far as the background went. I operated my own company till the late 90s. And by that time, I had four walk in locations. And in those days, people walked into the travel agency to plan a trip.

[00:01:19] And you often planned it with them sitting at your desk. So that business sort of the bottom fell out of it when mid range and economy focused travelers started using the internet to purchase travel. And if they could save a hundred bucks on the internet, they weren't going to come into your office. In those days, too, your marketing territory was pretty much limited to your geographic location because people came in.

[00:01:44] So if you weren't in Manhattan or in a very wealthy community, you weren't doing luxury travel. So I wasn't. So I decided to close that company and I was going to leave the industry in the late 90s. And instead, I thought, well, I'll stay in it if I can shift to luxury and adventure, which are my primary interests. And but I didn't have the clients for it. I didn't know where I was going to get them. So I found a company that was using internet marketing to snag high end leads.

[00:02:14] At least they claimed that they were doing it. And I talked them into hiring me, even though they were very reluctant because they were sure I'd be it. They were sure at 45 years old, I'd be too old fashioned to adapt to the world of the Internet. But they finally, you know, begrudgingly hired me. And then my goal was to be their top sales producer for two reasons. Number one was to stick it to them. And number two was because I needed to I needed income. My business had really pretty much been destroyed by three major factors.

[00:02:44] I would say it was airlines abruptly pulling commissions of technology sort of taking over travel sales for a brief time. And then the final nail in the coffin from my particular business was 9-11 because I was located in the conservative area in Illinois outside Chicago. And people just didn't get on planes for two years. They drove to the cabin in Wisconsin, which had nothing to do with anything that I was booking.

[00:03:08] So I closed down. Then I went to work for five years at this company that actually did turn out to provide really great leads. And it worked out very well for me there, except I wasn't treated very well there. The only thing they did well was provide the leads and that was good. So after I considered that my sort of getting my master's degree in luxury travel. And then I moved to a real travel company, which was pro travel at the time.

[00:03:36] Pro travel was started, I think, in the late 90s by one woman with four travel agents. And by the time I joined it, they had hundreds of people and their sales were roughly half a billion. And after I was there for a few years, she sold to travel leaders. We became we started acquiring other travel companies. And now we're sort of like we're sort of like Marriott. We have we have the luxury collection and the Ritz Carlton reserves of the travel industry. And we have the four points by Sheridan of the travel industry.

[00:04:05] It's a multi tiered company. But the the elite division that does luxury travel is now called global travel collection. My status there is as an independent contractor. However, I'm pretty much a boutique travel agency. There are nine people on my team. So the nine of us are a travel agency. We all work remotely, but we're in contact with each other every day on our own chat groups and everything else. We do take an annual trip together.

[00:04:34] And right now we're quite successful, but we're also in a very fragile business. So we are aware that every once in a while something can blow up and put us out of work for a couple of years like the pandemic did. So that's my history. Richard, I do think we should be saying 21. I mean, did you during school, were you were you drawn to travel? How and then how did you come to set up a business at 21?

[00:04:59] Well, when I was 1716 something like that, I went to to Cusco, Peru to live with a family for a summer. And that was the first time I ever got on a plane. And I had been sort of a reclusive type person in high school. I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I was in I was in theater and I was in music, but I was in a location where if you weren't in sports, you weren't a real man.

[00:05:23] And so when when I went to Cusco, one thing I discovered there was there's a big world out there. I grew up in a small town in Illinois. I want to go see the big world. So then I went to university. I majored in languages and literatures and got a degree in Spanish. But I focused on the literature side primarily because I've always been really interested in world cultures and how people think, philosophies, how people think around the world.

[00:05:50] So that's what my major was. So I walked out of university with a with a degree. And the next day I walked into a travel agency and I said, I want to work here till I figure out what I want to do. And I never figured it out. So I'm still doing it. But a couple of years into that, I was able to buy that travel agency. So and it was just tiny and one location when I bought it. And then I, you know, I just kept building it from there.

[00:06:14] And I had a business partner for a while who unfortunately passed away, you know, quite soon after I started the company. And then I ran it for myself for a while until I just closed it down. But I was just drawn to to traveling and to seeing the world.

[00:06:31] And in those days when I started my business, people who traveled internationally were actually interested in culture, interested in seeing how the differences between where they lived and where they were visiting. But the nature of the traveler has changed a lot over the course of my career, but that's what it was at that time. And I knew that's the stuff I was interested in. And I liked working with people who were interested in those kind of things. Fascinating. So I think that's a great question, just to get that bit of extra detail.

[00:07:00] You've talked, I think, about the company. And you know, you mentioned luxury and then adventure. Could you say a little bit more about that? Yeah, well, I am pretty much an adventure traveler myself. So I half live on a bicycle and it's not an e-bike either. It's a regular road bike. I, a couple of weeks ago, I did a 95 mile ride near my house and I climbed 7000 feet into the Rocky Mountains. And I do that all the time.

[00:07:30] I like hiking. I like rappelling. I tried via Ferrata last August for the first time and had a blast. Just absolutely loved it. So, so I'm into like active sort of things like that. But I don't want to cycle all day and then camp. I want to cycle all day and lay my head down at the four seasons in a suite. So, so I combine adventure with luxury as much as I can in my personal travel.

[00:07:58] And then those are the kind of clients I end up having gravitate toward me also. And I should say that, you know, my focus on is not on a single destination or even a travel style. My target is the client who values the experience above the budget. And it's not that the budget is not important. Everyone wants value and no one wants to be ripped off and I don't have any interest in ripping anybody off.

[00:08:25] But if you notice, Ewan, 95% of travel marketing is geared at low budgets, point redemption, getting the best deal, flying in first class for free instead of paying for it. That's where the focus is. So when people think travel, they just think about saving money. Last month I needed a new refrigerator. I used my American Express points to buy my refrigerator.

[00:08:54] I wish people would stop using them to buy airline tickets and hotel rooms because that cuts into my income. When I bought my refrigerator from Best Buy with American Express points, Best Buy got their cut. But when people buy travel using American Express points or miles or whatever it is, it cuts us out of our own income. So I'm always looking for ways to tell clients how to use their points that don't involve travel. But I got off the topic a little bit.

[00:09:22] I think because of that focus in marketing on budget, I'm not looking for those people. And I tell my staff all the time, we need 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of the traveling public. That's all we need and we'll make a really good living. So we don't need to put up with people who they're all about the budget. So that would mean you have a typical kind of client and the key being discerning. Is that the right description, Richard?

[00:09:51] Discerning or as you put it, more interested in the experience, not necessarily the cost? Discerning is a really good word, Ewan, but I think also just thoughtful. Somebody who thinks beyond the latest Instagram post they saw that had a pretty picture of the Eiffel Tower, and now they think they have to go climb it. Nobody has to climb the Eiffel Tower. Nobody even has to go inside it necessarily. But if you put a little thought into what do I really want out of this?

[00:10:20] Do I want to redeem my points and be limited to a corporate style hotel? Or do I want to have a boutique hotel with lots of character and a strong sense of place? So discerning is a good word, but I think even a more powerful word about it is just thoughtful. I think in our culture people don't think as much as they used to.

[00:10:43] They're listening to input from all kinds of sources and not thinking through issues or things or desires or wishes or dreams or hopes on their own. And thinking, what do I really want? And I'm often telling clients, you know, we all love our friends and we know that our friend recommended this vacation to you. That might have been great for your friend.

[00:11:06] And also, there's a lot of stuff your friend might never have known and they love their vacation because they didn't know. And what you don't know often doesn't hurt you. But wouldn't you like to have a spectacular experience? How does that conversation start typically then with your clients? Are they coming to you saying, we're thinking France? Or are they coming to you saying, look, we've got this. It's a milestone. We want to do something interesting.

[00:11:33] Or we're really interested in hiking this thing. Or at what point are they picking up the phone? Or is it you picking up the phone to them? Do you know what I would love, Ewan? I would love to be the one in total charge of where people go and what they do. And I would love to go to them and say, this is what I think you should do next. That would be utopia for me. And I do think there's some travel advisors that do that. They started their business doing that. And that's what they're doing.

[00:12:02] And they run the show. I was just traveling recently with a lady who, she creates all kinds of unique travel ideas. And she gets people to buy them. And once she got one or two trips off the ground, she was able to make that happen all the time. I've never slowed down enough in the referrals that come into me to be able to put time into focusing on that. So our business primarily right now is, you know, somebody emails or calls and says, you did it.

[00:12:31] You know, my next door neighbor can't stop raving about the great job you did on their trip to Turkey. We want to go to Greece. Do you think you could pull off the same thing in Greece that you pulled off in Turkey for them? And then we're off and running. And we've got a $50,000 booking to Greece. And I'm happy with that. I'm making money on it. It's great. Greece is a wonderful destination. So then, but I don't, I don't get to become more the influencer, which I really think I would like to be.

[00:12:55] And after this long in the business and spending so many hours and so many thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars investigating great places to travel and great things to do. I do think I'm the authority on where people should come and what they should do. So I wish more people would come to me and say, we have a two week period in January. What do you think we should do? I would love that. And then I would ask a bunch of qualifying questions. Do you like to eat? Do you like to drink? Do you like to hike? Do you like to be on the beach?

[00:13:25] Do you like to be in the snow? Do you know, it's always a hundred questions before you offer any information. Fascinating. Fascinating. Richard, would you tell us about a memorable trip just as an example that you may have booked for a client recently? Well, I mentioned Greece a moment ago and you know, nowadays, most people that go to Greece, they want the beauty of the islands. They want the sunsets. They want great restaurants and what have you, and maybe a little culture.

[00:13:55] So, you know, I would say 90% of the trips we do are trips that are like that and they're wonderful and Greece is a great destination for that. And we always make sure they spend a day or two on a boat and all those kinds of things. But I had a professor from a university who contacted me and said, we don't want to do the sun and sand things. We want to see every possible Greek ruin we possibly can. We want to see the ruins. We want to see the history.

[00:14:21] We want to we we want we're interested in the Greek Empire and what all went on during that time. Well, of course, based on what I told you earlier in this conversation, that is right up my alley. So that was my opportunity to spend a couple of hours researching all the places that you could visit now that would really teach you about ancient Greek culture and how the Greeks lived, how they influenced the rest of the world and what what caused their their fall, their downfall.

[00:14:49] So I learned so much doing that trip. And and then I worked with a destination management company in Greece that I and I contacted many that I knew when I said, this is an unusual type of client that they're not looking for Michelin star restaurants. So so so, you know, are you able to handle this? And I found one that I was very convinced could. So we executed the trip. The clients loved it. It was great. Now we're working on something for them for Brazil of all places.

[00:15:18] So so, you know, the same clients and it was the first booking that time. So, yeah, that was a really fun one. Now, I could tell you 100 more, but that was the first one that came to mind. Speaking of this generally, could you give us some generalizations here? What kind of demand are you seeing from clients?

[00:15:35] Well, primarily international, although when people ask me what the most exotic country in the world is, I I generally say the United States of America, because I think it is very exotic and British people and and Europeans who come to America just rave about how much they love it. So, you know, I would like to be selling more domestic than I am. A lot of times people think they don't need a travel advisor to do domestic. Oh, that's a big mistake, you know, because we have the inside knowledge there, too.

[00:16:04] But the biggest demand right now for years has been Italy. For the last few years, it's been Japan. It's a big problem with Japan because Japan simply doesn't have the infrastructure to handle the number of people that want to go there. African safaris have always been big with us. That's probably been my team's top market in terms of revenue, not in terms of number of people that go, but in terms of revenue.

[00:16:29] Places in Africa, primarily places that involve safari would be the top market for us. And there's an increase in demand for that. More and more people want to do it. It's getting more expensive. It's getting tougher because most countries in Africa are really trying to control this nonsense that we call over tourism. They do not want, you know, to have 50 safari vehicles watching the kill. It just doesn't work. So anyway, those those are all in demand and the demand is increasing.

[00:16:59] I would say my generation travel was not a need. It was a luxury. But people, you know, Gen Z, for example, it's basically a part of the lifestyle. We get on a plane every three weeks and go somewhere whether it needs it or not. And that's why every airplane is crammed full. That's why there's a lot of people in destinations all over the world that, to be quite honest, have no business there because they don't even know anything about it. They're just there to have a good time.

[00:17:24] So, you know, there's lots of demand, but I would say Japan, Italy, Safari, that those would be the ones that are the big demands right now. And often I find myself trying to steer people away from them if I if I can, especially Japan, because if you're not planning Japan really far in advance, it's hard to do it right. And I don't want to do a trip improperly and leave a bad impression with the client.

[00:17:49] For the suppliers listening, we always like to say, look, yeah, how should they be able to try and attract your attention in your business? I'm drawn to suppliers for a number of reasons. The first one would be is a supplier that stays in their lane. So if you are an expert in Puglia, really make the most out of Puglia. There's probably something in Puglia you as the experts still don't know. Go find it. Go visit that winery. Go eat at that restaurant.

[00:18:19] Go check out that hotel. But don't start working in, you know, Sicily. Don't start working in Madagascar. Stay in Puglia. So I like very localized DMCs. I am extremely drawn to B2B DMCs. People who only work with travel advisors. Because right now, one of the biggest problems facing the luxury travel industry is our biggest competitors are our partners.

[00:18:49] They are designing their websites to encourage the public to book directly. If a client on a Sunday afternoon is looking at something from one of our partner suppliers, and they get on that website and they click on the chat feature or they call on the phone, those aggressive salespeople are going to get a deposit out of them if they possibly can before they get off the phone. It used to be our partners partnered with us.

[00:19:18] Now they walk in our front door wanting our business and they walk out our back door soliciting our clients directly. That's a big issue for all of us. And I don't see any organizations in our industry doing much about it or putting any pressure on our partners. So I'd rather work with partners who are local partners who are less known. This is why I go to the journey shows because that's who Michaela digs out is people like that. And who work with travel advisors.

[00:19:47] We have the clients. They have the product. It's a great team. And that's the way I like it. If there's a supplier and they haven't, you know, they're not on your radar yet. How do they get on your radar? Journeys would potentially be one one option, right? Yeah, I would say that the best way. Well, let's see. The best way is is these tiny shows. So journeys is small.

[00:20:13] I think she brings in 40 advisor, maybe 35 advisors or 40 advisors and 40 suppliers. It's small. And she sets it up in a way by the time you leave, you know, everybody like some people don't like assigned seats at meals. I love that because when I went to the one in Savannah last March, you know, the last the last dinner, they said, oh, we're not going to do the assigned seats this time. And I said, oh, that's a bummer because there's a couple of people I haven't met yet.

[00:20:39] But they had it arranged so that you sat with different people all the time. So you didn't click up and you really did meet all these people. So I like that. Our company Global Travel Collection has smaller shows. Duco has shows that are focused on just one destination at a time. I've just signed up for a show in Argentina next year that's all focused on Latin America, destinations, DMCs, hotels, stuff like that. So smaller shows. I do go to Virtuoso Travel Week.

[00:21:09] I went this year for the first time in three weeks. I go to ILTM and Cannes. And those shows are very big. And unless you're super focused, you're not going to make the most of your time. So what I try to do with those shows is I try to organize meetings with people I don't know that well. Maybe people I've never met before. It may not be that I'll ever use them. But I want to know who is in business right now, not who was great 20 years ago.

[00:21:39] If they were great 20 years ago and they're great now in 2026, that's awesome. I'll keep working with them. But if somebody started a business in 2023 and they're really great and they're financially sound and they're doing a really good job and they have a good reputation and I get good references on them. And I am not, I'm not adverse to, to switching and to working with somebody different, especially if they meet my standards. I don't expect everybody to be the same.

[00:22:06] I certainly have had to evolve over my almost 50 year career. So I think everybody else, we should give everybody else a chance to do that too. So how else could they get in touch with me? Well, you know, I get probably, I would imagine I get 500 emails per day. And my favorite key is the delete one.

[00:22:26] And there are times when all I do is just glance through my inbox to see what came from a client and what came from a supplier that I'm working on a trip with right now. So, but, but a lot of times my inbox gets really full because something has, has sort of piqued my interest about this email. And it's usually from somebody new I've never heard of.

[00:22:49] And so I answered one last night, cause I'm really fighting with my inbox that I actually received in June from a little tiny hotel. And, and she had noticed my profile on LinkedIn and the owner of this hotel. She liked my profile on LinkedIn. And she said, I think our hotel is ideal for some of your clients. And this is June, this is three months ago. And I finally got back to her and I said, thank you so much for your delightful email. So, so she caught my attention with an email, but that's not always the best way.

[00:23:20] Um, I think if a, if a company has a good advisor facing website and we're at least aware of it, and we know that they're updating it on a regular basis, we're experimenting with that with our own marketing right now. And I said to one of the people on my team who does a lot of our marketing, I would like to come up with some really amazing thing to punch people with every Tuesday morning at 10 AM.

[00:23:43] And I would like for somehow our clients to get in touch with the fact that, oh, if I look at Richard's website Tuesday afternoon, I'm going to see some amazing thing he punches me with, you know, every week. I would love that, but how you get that information to somebody that's the trick. So I don't have a really good answer for that, but I will say that sometimes an email catches my attention and that the tiny shows definitely catch my attention for sure. Really helpful.

[00:24:12] Richard, we're at that point now where we want to turn to you once more, and we have the standard questions that a lot of our, our followers are expecting us to ask you. So this is about your own travel habits. I'll give you the overview first, just to give you some time to think. Question one now about you is, can you give us an undiscovered gem? It could be a hotel, a destination, an experience.

[00:24:37] Can you also, can we ask what your favorite hotel is, your favorite city, and then your perfect vacation? So there's the setup, and we're really keen to hear how you're going to answer these. So question one, what's an undiscovered gem, please, Richard? Well, I discovered an undiscovered gem this summer, this June, when I went on a cycling tour with Trek Travel in Norway.

[00:25:03] And I chose Trek Travel because their tour, I wanted a guided tour, because I don't want to lug all my own stuff. And I want a nice place to stay, like I told you earlier. But their itinerary took us into the heart of the fjords. One day we cycled up the highest mountain in Northern Europe. We had snow all around us in June. It was, the temperature was, in Fahrenheit, it was in the low 60s to mid 60s the whole time, while Italy had 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

[00:25:31] And so, you know what, this was a very hot summer in Europe, the last several have been, even in England. And, but not in Norway. It was, it was just delightful. So I really enjoyed that. And what I loved about the fjords, I was, I was staying five nights on this one fjord, two different hotels and two different parts of it. And this fjord is gigantic, huge, it's the biggest one.

[00:25:55] And I had been, two months earlier, I had been five nights in Lake Garda. And Lake Garda is beautiful, fabulous, awesome, amazing. But Lake Garda, all the way around it, you see mansions, hotels, cars, bicycles, motorboats, whatever, lots of people. All the way around the biggest fjord in Norway, you see barns that are falling down, strawberry patches, fields.

[00:26:24] There's no such thing as a motorboat. It's a whole nother world. And I can't believe it's so undiscovered. And little tiny hotels that nobody's ever heard of. So I thought that was a real gem that I discovered. I guess another one that I discovered was, I was in Argentina a couple weeks ago. And Argentina, as a country has a number of very unique features that are strictly about Argentina.

[00:26:50] They have their own art form, which I went to a workshop about that. They are the tango people. So tango, you know, it's amazing. But they have this gaucho culture. And the gaucho culture is very unique. It's not like American slavery. It's just different.

[00:27:10] And we got to go to a village that was the home of the author of a novel that's all about the gauchos that's actually required reading in public school for the kids there. Now, of course, in my group, I was the only person who had ever heard of this novel, let alone having had read it. But because of my major in university, I had read the book. And it was really fascinating to be in this guy's hometown. I never dreamed that I would go to the hometown of the author of that book. So that's another undiscovered gem.

[00:27:38] And it's only about an hour's drive outside of Buenos Aires. And it was great. It had, we got to see a silversmith making stuff that the gauchos would put on their horses and everything. And then we went out in the country to this beautiful Relay and Chateau Hotel and had lunch out there. And one day I will return there and stay five or six nights and read six books while I'm there. But while I was there for the afternoon, I rode a horse for an hour and had a wonderful lunch and some great conversations. So I would say those two come to mind right now.

[00:28:07] Another one that I discovered last October was Spanjovi Island, which is in Tanzania. So I went on a trip where I was able to visit every single property that's owned by a company called Laba Laba. That's L-A-B-A, L-A-B-A. They have several lodges in Tanzania. I would say that they're not the ultra luxe over the top lodges. They're luxury and they're comfortable and they're great. And the service is outstanding and the food was great.

[00:28:36] What I really liked about them is they had lodges in the southern part of Tanzania where nobody goes. They're not just in the Serengeti. They're in places where people don't go. So I went there and I capped off the trip with two nights on Fanchobi Island, which, you know, everybody goes to Zanzibar. Fanchobi is unheard of. There's only one property on the island. There's maybe, I don't know, 27, 28 villas, beautiful white sand.

[00:29:03] It's another make your own fun place. And those are things that I like. You know, there's not a lot of entertainment there. Very eco friendly. There's not even a swimming pool on the whole island because the ocean there is like a swimming pool. It's fabulous. So, but very undiscovered. I've, I never even, I talked to very few travel advisors that even know about it, but I think it's an excellent add on to a Tanzania Safari to unwind. So I would say those three. Wow.

[00:29:33] Fabulous, Richard. Excellent. Okay. And then can we, can we ask you what's your favorite hotel? I got a couple. I got a couple. Is that, if that's allowed. That's fine. That's allowed. That's allowed. Yeah. I love cannabis epitome in Santorini. Now Santorini is a busy tourist destination. And if you ever look at Instagram, you will know because Instagram never lies that right. The greatest sunsets in the world are on Santorini, but that is not true.

[00:30:02] Greatest sunsets in the world are at the pool and the restaurant and the bar at the cannabis epitome hotel in Santorini. Which they'll, those all sit about, I'd say 30 meters above where the crowds are packed on the street below, but nobody knows about, you know, going up to the pool. Except our clients who we booked there all the time when they go to Santorini and most people want a caldera view from their hotel room.

[00:30:29] But if I can talk people into staying at this place, they have the greatest sunsets on Earth. So I love that hotel and I love the room product and I love the service and I absolutely love the owners of the property there. There's so hospitable and very, very friendly. Great people. Then in April in Lake Garda, I got to stay at the Grand Hotel Villa Feltrinelli, which is an oasis amidst chaos.

[00:30:55] It is the most unbelievable place because I was driving from Slovenia to Lake Garda. And as I, as I approached Lake Garda and saw strip malls and car dealerships, I thought, what am I doing here? This, I just, this is not good. So then I turned on this road to go down to this beautiful hotel and I had to wind back and forth and back and forth all the way down until I got by the lake. And now it's serene and all I hear is birds.

[00:31:22] And, you know, their gym is in a lemon garden, lemon grove. It's sort of outdoors. When you order a drink sitting in an Adirondack chair next to the lake, you don't get chips or peanuts. You get some amazing canopy that was concocted by the Michelin two star chef that works there. So, and it's maybe 20 rooms and they're all stunningly gorgeous.

[00:31:49] And, you know, this is one of those hotels where half the staff has been there for 25 years. When you find that, you know, you've got a gym. So I would say in the last couple of years, those would be my two favorites. Well then, Richard, thank you for that. What then is your favorite city? Chicago, Illinois, USA. Oh, okay. Say why, say why. Now I love London and I love Paris and I'm passionate about New York and Mexico City. I really love cities.

[00:32:19] I'm a city boy myself. I lived in Chicago area all my life until six years ago when I moved to Denver where I live now. And I live in the heart of the city of Denver because I just kind of have to have city things. But the last few years I lived in Chicago, I had a home in the South Loop near Soldier Field where the Chicago Bears play. And Chicago has everything.

[00:32:43] Chicago has the most amazing architecture in the world because the whole city burned down in the late 19th century. And so architects came from around the world to basically experiment and practice there. And when I was a kid growing up, we had the two tallest buildings in the world, the Hancock Center and the Sears Tower. And now we don't have the tallest buildings. Those two are still there. And Sears is now called Willis Tower.

[00:33:07] But the experimentation in architecture, if anybody likes architecture and it's hard to live in Chicago and not love architecture. The place is just a study in various styles and various experiments. So I love that. It has a vibrant theater scene. Music in Chicago is probably unmatched. We have five or six excellent jazz clubs. And I love jazz.

[00:33:34] And we have blues clubs and any kind of music. It's a great city for sports. If I were going to design a 30 day trip for a Brit coming to the United States, I would include a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field. You have to go there. It's iconic. So there's so much to do. The dining scene in Chicago is amazing. If you go in the summertime, the lakefront is fabulous. There's 18 beaches. There's always beach volleyball going on. There is a cycle and a walking path.

[00:34:03] And there are two separate paths that go the full length of the lake. So I don't know, 18 miles or something like that. I used to cycle on it every day. Lots of parks. Lots of green space. Lots of flowers. Lots of unique neighborhoods all with their own personality. So I think it's easy to go there as a tourist and spend a week. And really get a deep dive into that city. And it's always a surprise to people, especially overseas visitors who say I wasn't really looking forward to Chicago.

[00:34:33] Overseas visitors want to go to New York. They want to go to Los Angeles, maybe San Francisco. They usually want to get a taste of Las Vegas and maybe Hollywood because it's all about movies. But people don't think about Chicago, but it's an outstanding destination and a lot of great hotels there too. Our final question for you, Richard, now is about your perfect vacation. What does your perfect vacation look like? My personal perfect vacation? Yes. Yeah.

[00:35:00] It's primarily where I discover something that either nobody's ever heard of or they're certainly not thinking about. So as I get older, I prefer to drive around a lot. So there's a highway that goes from the north end of Argentina to the south end of Argentina. My dream is to drive the whole thing. I don't know if I ever will, but I would love to do it. And, you know, just stuff like that. I've done so much and seen so much and been so many places now that I'm just thinking of different ways to travel.

[00:35:28] So ideally I go on an adventure where I don't really have a lot of information about what I'm going to see. I have a general itinerary. I have a general plan, but I get to be surprised along the way and discover new things. And I think I told you that I'm always looking for what is unique to this destination. So I was only in Argentina last week for five nights. That was it.

[00:35:57] And, you know, for example, I went to a workshop about Feleteado Portoño, which is a unique art form that began in the earliest 20th century when people started painting these three dimensional looking with lots of shadows and lots of colors paintings on horse carts. And it became an art form that now has masters doing it. And it's unique to Argentina. I love discovering those things. I never even heard of it till I went on this trip.

[00:36:27] So, you know, I'm 68 years old now and I'm still learning new things every single day. And I just love that. That's what I love about this industry. I learn stuff. So that's the kind of trip I like best. And I just like to go to places that are off the beaten path. And now, too, increasingly, my ideal vacation is one where you do what I call linger longer.

[00:36:52] I think Americans are used to rushing through everything, you know, 12 countries in 10 days. No, I don't want to do that. So I like to go plant myself for a while and do a good balance of activity and leisure. So that I can sit in a coffee shop and have a coffee and watch people or go to a really unique bar and have a cocktail and have a conversation with somebody who grew up in a completely different atmosphere than I did and thinks completely differently than I do.

[00:37:22] And I want to see what they think about the world. So those are my favorite type of things. Absolutely fabulous, Richard. Just before we let you go, what is the best way of interacting with you, of connecting with you? Is it as you had mentioned for the small hotel owner there? Is it LinkedIn? Is it email? How do people connect with you? You mean suppliers that want to get in touch? Exactly. Yes. Or all the travel buyers. I'm glad you said LinkedIn.

[00:37:50] I think that's a great way. You know, request a connection with me on LinkedIn. I always say yes. And I've developed quite a network. And actually after I say yes, I often go look at the profile of the person that wanted to get in touch with me, especially if they're about travel. Now I can tell pretty quickly if there's something else and they're trying to sell me an accounting system or something like that.

[00:38:12] But if they are a small destination management company, a small hotel that doesn't have the marketing dollars to be in Virtuoso, for example, and that wants to connect with travel advisors who are going to probably produce for them because they're looking for something unique. They're looking for something different. They're not looking for the norm. Getting in touch with me by LinkedIn. I'll pay attention. I'm glad you brought that up because I didn't think of it earlier when you asked.

[00:38:41] Well, look, thank you so much for taking the time to share an extensive overview of you and your organization. Richard, we really appreciate you taking the time. You're welcome. Thank you, Ewan. It was a pleasure.