| Travelocity CEO And The Gnome Visit Orlando The Orlando Sentinel May-15-2007 Beth Kassab Travelocity Chief Executive Officer Michelle Peluso, 35, who was in Orlando last week to meet with the travel Web site's local partners. She spoke with Sentinel staff writer Beth Kassab. Question: What type of people are you meeting with? Answer: Hotels, resorts, of course Disney. Our beloved Roaming Gnome has appeared at the Epcot Flower & Garden Show so we're going over there to see how he's doing. Q: Typically Disney doesn't do a lot of partnerships where they incorporate another company's character into their own event. How did you get that started? A: Of course, the Roaming Gnome thinks he's one of the seven dwarfs. I think it just reflects the fact that we've been working with Disney for a long time. We have a very similar philosophy about putting the customer first and making sure the customer's experience is a great one. ..... I know the gnome is going to be deeply depressed when he finds out he can't stay with the dwarfs. He's blogging from all different parts of Epcot. He's been filmed all over Disney, and photos have been taken of him all over Disney. Q: You have a very impressive educational pedigree. You were at Oxford [University] and the [University of Pennsylvania's] Wharton School of Business. At the level you're at, how do you keep in touch with the more average consumer out there who doesn't have a huge amount of disposable income? A: I think people want to get a fair price. I don't care if you're a millionaire or if you're working really hard for minimum wage. Nobody wants to feel like they bought something and they find out the person sitting next to them on the plane paid less. ..... But more importantly, I don't think it's that people want the rock-bottom price or the rock-bottom experience. They want a good experience at a fair price. ..... When you go home and you talk about your trip to Orlando, are you bragging about the price or are you talking about the experience? As we really dug in deeper it is not that they just want the cheapest thing out there. In fact they often want to pay for a nicer experience. ..... How do I keep in touch with customers? By hearing from them directly first and foremost. My e-mail and my contact information is all over the Web. There's not a day that goes by that I don't get several e-mails from consumers. Q: Some travel agents are saying that they are actually seeing a little bit of a swing back toward agents in some cases because people have tried the whole Web thing and they've decided, 'I'd rather have someone do this for me.' A: We are a travel agent. I barely think of us as a Web-based agent anymore. We have thousands of employees around the world who spend all day every day answering customer calls. ..... Maybe there's not as much of a distinction between web based and not web based. Q: I think a lot of people, though, think of Travelocity as a booking site. A: For our cruise bookings, the majority comes from people talking to live agents. I think it reflects the fact that it's a higher ticket priced item. We want to solve customers' travel ..... If they are someone who wants to log on at one in the morning, and book a quick something and they know exactly what they want, great. If they prefer to call one of our sales agents and talk through it with them, that's fine too. Our job is to be responsible and accountable for travel experiences for our customers. ..... In Orlando we are up so far this year about 20 percent for our revenue, which is really quite astounding. Q: What does that mean? A: Travelocity's put a lot more focus on Orlando; we see it as a really important destination. Q: I want to bring up the Forbes article from last year that warned men that professional women are more likely to get divorced, cheat ..... A: Not have a clean house ..... make you miserable ..... Q: Right. At the time, I read some quotes from you where you said you planned on talking to Forbes about it. I was wondering if you ever had that conversation? A: We did send over our views to Forbes on that. I'm not someone who jumps into the fray on those issues a lot, because I think a lot of it is inflammatory nonsense. But on that particular issue, a variety of women who I admire enormously on the Travelocity team read it and were sending it around and were just upset. And it wasn't just the women. I think the men were appalled by it too. Q: I read that you recently got married last year, is that right? A: Yes, and my house is very clean, I have to say. I do clean it and we share cooking and all that good stuff. And so far my husband seems very happy. Q: If consumers had the chance to talk to the CEO of Travelocity, they'd probably want to know what are the tricks. Is there a trick you can share with us? A: We have something at Travelocity called FareWatcher. You can put in where you want to leave from and all the destinations you're interested in and we'll do all the monitoring. So you can say notify me when the price drops below $200. |
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