Traveling nearly half the year for business may seem excessive unless, like Daniel Sullivan Jr., your business is selling vacations. He’s the second generation of Sullivan ownership at Collette Vacations of Pawtucket.
Sullivan recently spoke with Providence Business News about creating the company’s offerings and why a small village in Germany will draw tourists during 2010.
PBN: So you travel for business a lot?
SULLIVAN: Yes, 150 days a year. I’m in Nebraska working with a sales team now. I led a group to Antarctica in February and I’m leading a group to Egypt in September.
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PBN: You personally still run tours every year?
SULLIVAN: Yes, I escort one tour every year. … We operate tours almost every week. But those that I would escort or tour-manage – that’s only one a year.
PBN: Tell me a little bit about the types of tours that Collette sets up.
SULLIVAN: Now I have product managers. In the 1980s and 1990s, we set up a lot of the programs, put together designs with those product managers and now I have 12 people who actually design products around the world. They travel to most of those destinations for me.
PBN: What types of transportation do you use?
SULLIVAN: Our tours are escorted motor-coach tours, where we’ll fly to the location and pick up a motor coach. But some of tours will include cruises and trains.
PBN: What type of specialty tours do you offer?
SULLIVAN: We’ll do unique experiences, so our clients travel with Collette because they know we include things that capture the flavor of the area. We’ll take a rickshaw ride through the old city in Beijing and have lunch in a Chinese home. We’ll have dinner at the home of a New Zealand family one night in a small group.
PBN: Has that cultural emersion been a growing trend over the past 10 years?
SULLIVAN: It’s become more and more about great experiences. More cooking classes, cooking demonstrations. There are opal demonstrations in Australia and seeing how noodles are made in China.
PBN: How do you know what your clients want?
SULLIVAN: Well, it’s basically based on past demand, whatever has sold. Canadian Rockies by rail has been our top-selling tour for the past eight years. We know that clients are going to ask for that just because we’ve seen general demand. … We know that demand is there.
When we create new tours, we get feedback from marketing. We get feedback from our 72 salespeople in three countries: Britain, Canada and the U.S.A.
PBN: You were one of the first tour companies with tours on all seven continents, right?
SULLIVAN: We’re one of the only companies that run tours to all seven continents. … We have tour managers that travel to all seven continents. … We have 110 tour guides who go all around the world.
PBN: How have the number of guests on your tours changed?
SULLIVAN: We have three different types of products: Our mainstream Collette, which will be roughly 40 passengers in a group; Our new tour division, which we’ve just launched, is called Explorations by Collette and that will have 16 to 24 passengers on a tour on an individual departure. So that gets more of the individualized, personalized touch – unique and small hotels and things like that. And the third is the Smithsonian tours. Collette handles the educational aspects and does the escorted product for Smithsonian during the adventures.
PBN: Has there been demand for travel to Europe recently?
SULLIVAN: Ireland demand has been up and Italy has been about the same. Travel to the United States, to our national parks, is up. The European [tours] have been down slightly because of the euro and fuel costs, but we expect that to come back in 2009 and 2010 … We just expect the dollar to strengthen by then.
PBN: What countries have you booked for 2009?
SULLIVAN: Right now the U.S.A. is very strong, China is strong. Parts of Europe, Ireland being one, are doing very well. River cruising is good, with us. Canada is still strong for us, and Hawaii is good. Those are the early leaders and we’re selling a lot for 2010 already, including the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany.
PBN: What is that?
SULLIVAN: Every 10 years, they run a Passion Play on the life of Christ, in Oberammergau. It’s a play that’s run since the Black Plague, when the village was spared. It’s a little village in Germany and they’ve kept their word [about performing it every 10 years], and it’s scheduled again for 2010.
PBN: Is that something to which you’ve run tours before?
SULLIVAN: Oh, yes. We did it in 1984, which was an anniversary year, 1990 and 2000. We’ve always had very good success there.
PBN: How long has Collette been based in Pawtucket?
SULLIVAN: We’ve been here since 1918. Collette is the oldest tour operator in the United States. It’s been operated by the Sullivan family since 1962.
PBN: And what generation Sullivan are you?
SULLIVAN: I’m the second generation. Nicole, Dan and Jacqueline are part of the third generation.
PBN: How many employees were with the company when you started?
SULLIVAN: There were actually seven employees if you count both the Pawtucket and Providence offices. There are now 550. •
INTERVIEW
Daniel
Sullivan Jr.
POSITION: President and CEO, Collette
Vacations
BACKGROUND: Since starting out in the
family business after college, Sullivan has held a number of positions, including working in the mail room and answering customer service calls. He became president and CEO in 1990 and made a push, with his brother, Kevin, toward modernizing the business and creating a Web-based travel company.
EDUCATION: B.S. in marketing, Fairfield University, 1973; MBA, Harvard, 2001.
FIRST JOB: Tour guide on college campus
RESIDENCE: Lincoln
AGE: 56
