Mrs. Ifie Ezenwa-Ugwoke, a former broadcaster of note is Managing Director/Chief Executive, Treaven Travels and Tours Limited, a tour management company. In this interview with Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf she gives insight into the running of a travel agency vis-à-vis its prospects and challenges
How and when did you start?
I came into the travel trade by divine inspiration. I used to be a regular traveller before I set up shop some 10 years ago. I never for once saw myself getting into the travel agency because I had this misconception that the travels and tours business was peopled by hustlers and layabouts. But it so happened that on one of my numerous trips abroad I came back and I just had this divine inspiration from God that said look, my dear, I want you to go into this industry.
I started about 10 years ago as a travelling agent in the business of ticketing, hostels, tours, cars and what have you, with no prior knowledge about the business.
But God taught me everything to the extent that I was teaching other people. There is hardly anybody in the industry that knows more than I do. I never worked in an airline, I never worked in another travel agency, God just taught me all I needed to know about the sector.
So, how would you describe your experience thus far?
Well all I can say is I give thanks to God, for having brought us thus far, because when I started about 10 years ago, I remember that most of the big travel agencies that were there at that time are no longer in the industry, so many agencies have fallen by the way side, and why are we not part of those that have fallen by the way side?
It’s just by the grace of God, and then another thing is that we believe so much in being good at what we do. It’s not about doing it the way others are doing, but the ability to differentiate yourself from the rest of the pack.
I recall when I was doing my management course for my masters degree, we were taught something called core competency. This thing called competency means that you have to find a little element to differentiate you from others. In the travel agency, others believe basically in issuing tickets but we believe in after-sales, and that means most of our passengers, have been there for 10 years and most of the passengers. So, what that means is that we have been satisfying them all these years and that’s why they have remained loyal to us so to speak. Our strategy is that we try to satisfy our customers who in turn send us referrals. We strive to satisfy one person who will bring in 10 people or more. This is what has been working for us thus far.
You have actually painted a rosy picture, but I know in business it’s not all rosy. So, what have been the major challenges and how have you been able to deal with them?
Well, the greatest challenge in Nigeria is that people hardly appreciate travel agents because they don’t understand what the functions of a travel agent is, and I do not blame them in a way because half of the people in the market hardly know what they are doing. So, it’s easy for people out there to classify everybody as people who don’t have knowledge, because if you appreciate a travel agent you will know that it is a lot easier to go to a travel agency than to an airline, airlines like British Airways sells their ticket, Delta Airways their own ticket, Royal Jordanian their ticket, Kenya Airways their ticket, but a travel agency will stay and give you in five minutes all the available tickets and seats of all the airlines in Nigeria. It’s that simple, so you are able to make a choice based on your needs.
You just mentioned a very fundamental issue, the fact that Nigerians don’t appreciate travel agencies, which brings us to the question of awareness. So, what’s the level of awareness about travel agents?
Let me give you an instance, a Nigerian will go to the airline, and will not ask the airlines to give a commission, whereas, if he gets to an agent who is selling the same tickets airline are selling, an airline is the owner of the vessel that is carrying people, so everything is within their control, an agency really doesn’t have much of control, but out of the small money that you are getting as commission, you are using it to pay rent, you are using it to pay all overheads, to make sure you run a vibrant travel agency, a customer now comes and say you have to give me discount. Don’t forget, most of the time, the sales we are making, we have what we call IATA agency fare, which most of the airlines cannot sell because it’s left for only IATA travel agents, airline cannot sell it, it’s only us, and giving you that fare that is cheaper than what airline is selling, somebody is still asking you to give a discount, and when I see such people, I look at such people and conclude that they can’t be my passenger because they do not appreciate the way things work.
For such people, I will excuse them and say please go elsewhere. Really, I don’t mind excusing such people, because I went to school, I learnt what I’m I doing, and I try to be good at what I’m doing so that people will appreciate having someone like me, because aviation business is a capital business, so is the travel agency business.
We just opened two online portals namely: www.treaventravels.com and www.farecatalogue.com, recently. We have been at it for the past one year plus. If we tell you how much we have spent on two of them, you won’t believe it. So, for you to identify what you are doing, see the usefulness of what you are doing, and be ready to go through with it, it can be costly sometime but you are looking at the ultimate destination of where you are going, not on the current situation.
You are talking about strategy, what works for you?
There is no better strategy than what we are just talking about, which are the two online portals. There are people who will still prefer to talk to you, they feel incomplete, fine, but they have not identified how they want to travel, they could still call us, they could still, but for people who are frequent travellers, who want tickets, want to stay in a five star hotel, and all that… So, you have to identify your needs…
Let me ask you, getting patronage…
That’s what I said before. People, who can’t use our website, will call us, the phone numbers are there, somebody will call, that’s part of it.
