He sits at the helm of a 105-year-old family business. It’s one of the oldest tour operators in the world, a company that has ridden the waves of war, natural disasters and now a global pandemic. We talk to Collette CEO Dan Sullivan, a man who, despite his drive for innovation, keeps it simple: travel is vital, the customer experience is crucial and agents are enduring.
Jack Collette came home from World War I and soon started Collette Tours. After successfully running tours from New England on the East Coast of the United States, the company moved its base of operations to the New England Transportation Company Terminal in Providence, Rhode Island.
It’s here that Jack crossed paths with Dan Sullivan Snr. Looking to retire, Jack sold the business to Dan, marking the beginning of the current dynasty of Collette, which continues to this day. Karryon caught up with the present-day CEO and son of Dan Sullivan Snr, Dan Sullivan Jr, when he was last in Australia.
Alice Sullivan, the chair of the Collette Board recalled that “our first office was so tiny that if you took a step backwards, you fell down an open hole that was stairs to the basement”. Collette is now a global company with offices in the United States, Australia and Canada. Would you say you’re still a family business?
We’re now in the third generation of Sullivans. So it is still very much a family-run business. I have three brothers and three sisters. And all but one worked in the family at some point. And we still have six family members involved in the business today.
How has your early experience with the company impacted the decisions you make about Collette today?
I started when the company was smaller and so I could do a bit of everything. And that helps you to make decisions now because you understand how it works. When you go from the ground up, you really understand the product, the sales, the marketing, the operation. We started in the mail room when we were in junior high school, doing functional things. And it soon became obvious how important the customer is. How the customer is at the core of everything we do from the mail room to the board room.
And now you’re the CEO. What advice would you give to someone new starting in the travel industry?
To anyone starting out, just ask a lot of questions. Ask them until you understand the detail. And keep asking even if you’re not new to the industry. Things have changed so much. Whatever that answer was pre-COVID, it could be very different now. So you’ve just got to play Socrates and ask a lot of questions.
And then embrace travel, embrace the great experiences there are around the world. Travel is the great educator and the more people you meet, the more you travel, the more educated you are. Just by meeting people and talking.
And that’s your approach to customer experience as well, isn’t it?
Local experience is one of Collette’s trademarks. In particular, our small tour exploration product, which is created for the traveller. We try to create experiences for each traveller, allowing them to personalise it by giving them choices on tour. So you may want to go hiking through the Dolomites. Someone else may want to go to a museum. The choice is there to make the experience your own.
It’s in our DNA to have really great local experiences, to stay in great hotels and pace the traveller because that’s our focus. We want them to have a vacation they love and to be able to immerse themselves fully. If they’re unpacking and packing every night and having one-night stands with a place it’s not going to be that way. So at Collette, we have the least one night stays in touring to allow travellers to learn the destination and unpack and relax and enjoy it.
What have been some of your more memorable travel experiences, and how have they influenced your approach to the travel industry and leadership at Collette?
Well, I travel about 150 days a year. And you’ll learn from any travel. You’ll learn about people, you’ll learn about their culture, and it all makes a difference. Travel allows us to put ourselves outside of what we know and into local DNA and culture. That’s really, really the key.
One time, we were setting up Patagonia where we go from El Calafate through to Pia Glacier and I remember seeing the gauchos passing in full uniform, and it’s not a show, you’re where they live. And I wanted to stop and talk to them, but I was driving and didn’t and got all the way to the border and didn’t see another gaucho I could talk to. So I missed doing that.
And when I was in Japan, originally in the mid-80s, working on a tour program, I was near Mount Fuji. And after I had some meetings, I saw these kids playing high school baseball. I wanted to stop and play baseball with them but I was due on a bullet train from Hakone to Kyoto. And I never got another opportunity until 30 years later. You’ve got to do these things when you can. Take the opportunities when they’re there.
How do you balance the demands of growing a successful business with the responsibility of promoting sustainable and ethical tourism practices, and what steps has Collette taken in this regard?
We have a role as a business, and we have a role as travellers to protect the environment we’re living in and visiting. We believe that travel should be a force for good and by uniting with our employees, partners and travellers, we can make a positive impact in our local and global communities. And we have a Green Team who are working to reduce our carbon footprint, waste and energy use with the goal of being carbon neutral by 2024.
We also have our not-for-profit, the Collette Foundation, which supports worldwide communities in need through hunger and education initiatives. Each year, employees volunteer more than 4,500 hours of their time to efforts in their own communities and across the world.
What do you see as the key trends and challenges facing the travel industry in the coming years, and how do you plan to address them?
As soon as I hit the ground here, I went to visit some agent partners and I asked, what do you need? And one of the things they love from Collette is that we answer the phones in three minutes because time is money for the agents. So one of the commitments we made to the agent community and to our travellers, is that we’re going to pick up the phone an average of two and a half minutes or less. We invested in skilled people and we train our agents. Plus, we have the highest percentage of guaranteed dates. And also, we’re working hard to improve online service so agents can get answers when and where they need them.
With the rise of digital technologies and social media, how do you see the role of travel agents and traditional travel distribution channels evolving, and what opportunities and challenges does this present for the industry?
It will change and it is changing. And it’s getting better in the sense that we can provide gateways where agents can look up information and get a lot of their answers when they’re in front of their clients.
I see agents being even more valued because once people head to the internet, they can come out more confused. Because too much of the internet is general. So you really need agents who know their clients, know the quality of product and know the right questions to ask. That’s where the agent makes a difference.
For more information on Collette, visit its website, www.gocollette.com/en-au.
All images courtesy of Collette.
