Florida Was My First Lesson in Selling Experiences, Not Holidays

When I set off travelling the world with my fiancé Sue Smith, who later became my first wife, I was fortunate enough to find a better way of funding the trip than working behind bars or picking fruit. I had arranged to do various pieces of project work for ILG as I travelled, which effectively made me a digital nomad about thirty years before anybody had invented the expression.

Our first stop was Florida, and I still remember arriving at Orlando International Airport on a wet March evening and thinking what a complete mess the operation was.

In those days Orlando Airport was dominated by the American scheduled airlines, who appeared to have little interest in their rapidly growing charter cousins bringing thousands of British holidaymakers into Florida. Charter passengers were effectively banished to a secondary terminal, where they collected their luggage from one carousel, handed it back again, travelled on a shuttle train and then had to find their luggage for a second time amongst hundreds of equally confused passengers.

Fortunately, because I was working for ILG, the local area manager collected me and whisked me off to the car hire depot, but even with that advantage, the whole process took around two and a half hours. As charter capacity into Florida continued growing, it eventually became even worse, regularly taking customers three hours or more to escape the airport.

That experience stayed firmly in my mind and was one of the reasons that, later in my Airtours career, I became involved in the project to abandon MCO and develop Sanford as our alternative Orlando gateway. But that's another story.

Once I escaped the airport, Florida taught me something much more important about travel. This wasn't really a holiday destination in the traditional sense; it was an experience that families were prepared to save for and spend heavily on.

The three Disney parks operating at the time completely wowed me, not just because of the attractions but because of Disney's relentless customer-first culture. Universal Studios was less impressive on that first visit, mainly because both King Kong and Jaws weren't working when we visited, although ironically Universal later became my favourite when my position in the travel industry gave me access to their superb VIP backstage tours.

What fascinated me commercially was how differently British customers behaved in Florida.

For most families, Florida wasn't an annual holiday. They might return every three or four years as their children grew older, with Universal, Disney and SeaWorld providing different experiences at different ages. Because customers regarded the trip as special, they wanted everything organised before leaving Britain and around 90% bought their attraction passes in advance, even though they often discovered after arriving that tickets could sometimes be bought more cheaply locally.

I've subsequently seen exactly the same psychology operating in reverse with Americans visiting Ibiza. Having flown thousands of miles, they don't want to waste a minute working things out when they arrive. They pre-book boat trips, nightclub packages, restaurants and concierge services, often spending amounts that would make regular British visitors' eyes water.

The further people travel, the more exotic the destination feels and the greater their willingness to spend money maximising the experience.

For Airtours, this eventually meant Florida could generate as much opportunity from what customers bought once they were there as from transporting them across the Atlantic.

It was also why ILG had sent me to examine the operation being run by our local ground handler, Loraine Frame. Having reviewed it, I recommended leaving it exactly where it was. Loraine's business was professionally run and more efficient than virtually any ILG resort operation I had encountered. Years later I was delighted to discover Airtours using the same ground handler, and by then Loraine had also become a personal friend.

People often say friendship and business shouldn't mix, but I've always thought that's rubbish in travel. Good friendships are normally built on trust, and trusting somebody to look after your customers thousands of miles away is one of the most important commercial relationships a tour operator has.

Later, Airtours tried operating its own ground handling in Florida. The model worked perfectly well in many smaller beach destinations, but Florida was different because relationships with organisations such as Disney and Universal had been built over many years. Sometimes who you know really is as important as what you know.

After three months working for ILG in Florida, I'd earned enough money to continue our journey to Australia.

Florida had paid for the next stage of my world tour, but more importantly, it had taught me that the most profitable travel businesses don't simply sell holidays. They understand the experiences customers have travelled halfway around the world to enjoy.