It’s a place where travel advisors go to book vacations. It’s a place where they go to learn about brands and destinations. It’s a place with deals to offer clients, marketing materials, informative education, inspirational content and so much more. You guessed it — it’s VAX VacationAccess.
This year VAX is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and while we know all about what it is today, we wanted to take a peek back in time and get a glimpse of how it all started. In order to do so, The Compass sat down with Bill La Macchia, founder of Trisept Solutions, and John Ische, president of Trisept Solutions, two of the brilliant minds who put the platform into existence.
How It All Began
There are several travel advisors who have been around for 30-40 years, and they remember the days of looking up airfare rates on fare sheets, providing clients with paper tickets and relying heavily on fax machines. Business was conducted over the phone or in person, but the internet and Global Distribution Systems were making their appearance in the travel industry.
In the mid-90s, the first online travel agencies were launching, and La Macchia and Ische saw how fast consumers were embracing buying travel online. However, no one was investing in technology for travel advisors to compete against these online businesses.
“From day one, I was a believer in technology,” La Macchia said. “I had no idea how it all worked, but I knew what it would do for our company.” According to La Macchia, one day Ische came to him and said, “What if we can give the travel agent access to all the information, so they can not only make the booking but they can also service their customer throughout their trip.”
The idea of VAX was born. “We knew we needed technology, and nobody had any, so we had to create it ourselves,” said La Macchia.
“The whole concept then was no one is investing in technology to bring leisure travel agents into the online world. No one was making that investment,” Ische said. It was clear to us that if that wasn’t going to happen, they were going to wither away, that they weren’t going to really have a future, that consumers would shift to buy directly from these online travel agencies and the regular agencies wouldn’t survive long term.”
The company wanted to assist in bringing travel advisors to the online world, and they had a vision to make it happen. In 2000, VAX VacationAccess was launched, and its introduction was announced at an ASTA conference in Milwaukee. It didn’t take long for travel advisors to welcome the platform. “As soon as VAX went to market, it ramped up incredibly fast,” Ische said.
The key for travel advisors was that they were now able to do almost all the functions they needed to do to sell a wide range of products without having to make numerous phone calls.
“It worked for the travel agents. It worked for the suppliers. It worked for the travelers, and it worked wonderfully for the company,” La Macchia said. “It gave the travel agents control of their destiny with their consumer.”
Where It Is Today
What once started as a place to book vacation packages for clients is now a marketplace for advisors to do so much more. VAX connects travel advisors and brands through brand showcases and assists advisors in elevating their knowledge with destination pages, specialist campaigns and a host of educational opportunities. The platform also provides fresh marketing materials and inspirational content for advisors to share with their audiences to help boost business.
It has evolved in several different ways, but according to Ische, the mission remains the same: to advocate for advisors and support them with technology.
Early on, it was clear to La Macchia and Ische that travel advisors were selling a lot of different products, which included products outside of The Mark Travel Corporation. Thus, they decided to make VAX an open platform for other tour operators to use as well.
“That’s also part of what VAX is still today,” Ische said. “It’s this open, neutral marketplace for travel advisors. That’s always what VAX has been about — enabling travel agent success and being an open, neutral marketplace for all travel sellers who are engaged with travel advisors to participate.”
“Being the advocate for the travel advisor community, that’s always been our DNA. That’s always been deep in who we are, to be there for travel agents and to power their future with technology,” he added.
Advice From the Experts
While having successful technology is key to conducting business, La Macchia reminds advisors that customer service continues to be an important part of the overall experience.
“For the success of the travel advisors, and for them to grow, they have to be more involved in the execution of the customer service. It’s so easy to book a product. Anybody can book a product,” La Macchia said. “The biggest issue you have is ‘how do you connect with the customer?’ And the only way to connect with the customer is through customer service.”
“If I were a travel agent today, the one thing I would do … is I would put an umbrella over my customer and make sure that their needs are always taken care of, and I would market that,” he added.
Planning vacations is not simply about making a booking. It involves matching clients to the right products, choosing the correct destination and knowing the best time of year to go. It’s adding in those excursions that fit the type of traveler advisors are working with and creating a well-rounded, personalized itinerary that not just anyone could piece together online.
To do this, Ische says advisors need education, and then they need deals and promotions for clients, and then materials to market those deals. Realizing these things is how VAX began to evolve into what it is today and why there are several offerings outside of the booking platform. Advisors need to have the tools to book a vacation, but they also need to have expert customer service for their clients.
“If travel advisors are not involved in servicing the customer, not just that first booking but all the other things that make it a great experience, they won’t be relevant,” Ische said.
Looking Ahead
Sometimes in order to look ahead, a company needs to look back first. As for what the future holds for VAX VacationAccess, Ische said the important part is staying true to its original vision: “I think VAX has got to continue to stay true to who it is today, and if it stays true to who it is today, it’s going to continue to enable the marketplace of suppliers and advisors to thrive.”
The original vision was to bring travel advisors into the online world, and VAX played a big part in making this happen. “That vision worked. That vision evolved to what we wanted it to be,” La Macchia said.
And the vision for the future remains the same: to enable travel advisors with the tools and resources they need to not only stay relevant but to thrive.
“If an advisor can go to one website and book a big breadth of product and at the same have all this educational information about how to be a better agent and also see all the different promotions, deals and offers that they have available to them, with some ties to their marketing tools for them to get that message out to their customers, that combination is the power that will make VAX’s future,” Ische added.
When a dreamer and a visionary collide, there is no stopping them. The original vision of VAX was strong, and the future of VAX is even stronger.
“John’s a visionary. I’m a dreamer. … That kind of combination creates the right end result,” La Macchia said. “When you have an idea, and you build it and execute it, and it works, it can’t get any better than that.”
This article originally appeared in the Winter 2024 issue of The Compass magazine.
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