A travel agency on a mission (Travel Weekly Magazine 08/07/2006)

By Laura Del Rosso

About 40 years ago, Glenn Wilcox got an offer that was difficult to turn down. A friend who was president of a regional bank urged him to move his travel agency, Wilcox World Travel and Tours, from Boone, N.C., to Asheville, N.C., about 85 miles away.

“He said, ‘Move your family to Asheville and be on our board of directors and open an office in our new building. We’ll give you rent free for two years,’ “ Wilcox said. His wife, Pauline, agreed, and the Wilcoxes relocated.  

In Asheville, Wilcox met Billy Graham, the Christian evangelist, and the two became friends. Soon, Wilcox Travel was handling travel not only for Graham personally but for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and its Crusades and conferences worldwide. The first Graham Crusade handled by Wilcox in 1986 was in Amsterdam and drew 10,000 people.  

The Christian religious market quickly became Wilcox’s core business, with a strong focus on pilgrimage tours to the Holy Land and other parts of the world.  

“It’s not something that you can pick up off the shelf,” said Wilcox. “We create packages based on what group leaders want. We have Pied Pipers, such as the president of a garden club, a preacher or choir directors. We handle all the operations and act as the tour director. If you have a good Pied Piper, you don’t have to worry about sales.”  

Also, Wilcox said much of the group division’s success is attributable to longtime relationships with overseas operators. The agency has used the same operators in Israel, Athens and other destinations in Europe for more than 30 years.  

Wilcox Travel operates dozens of tours each year to Israel and the Middle East (Wilcox has traveled to the Holy Land 115 times and continues to lead groups) and offers other pilgrimages to Europe and the U.K., specializing in Martin Luther and Baptist heritage.  

“Once you do one pilgrimage, you want to do more,” Wilcox said. “If the pastor has a following, it’s a way for him to get really close to his membership. It’s a bonding experience and often makes their Christian faith more meaningful. You can read about it, but there’s no greater experience for Christians than being where Jesus walked and talked.”  

The group department also blocks space on cruises, helping church leaders organize Bible studies and other customized programs onboard ships.  

And every 10 years, the agency sends about 3,000 people to the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany. Planning is already under way for the 2010 Passion Play season. The agency is buying 45 tickets for each performance and has an agreement with the same hotel, located in the heart of the city, it has used since 1970, buying all of its rooms from May through October.  

About 30% of Wilcox’s $18 million in annual sales is group tours, and 30% is missionary and humanitarian travel. The agency negotiates missionary fares with airlines. Wilcox Travel uses its database of 30,000 people who are interested in missionary work and blasts e-mails to inform people about humanitarian and missionary projects.   

“When the tsunami [in Southeast Asia] hit, we approached Northwest, and they gave us a special air fare. We sent 3,000 people there from all over the U.S.,” Wilcox said. “Church-related travel is an area that airlines don’t do directly because they don’t understand the market. We’re one of the few agents that negotiate special missionary travel year-round.”  

Wilcox’s agency was one of the first 50 agencies to join the American Express Representative Network, and he is the last of the original 50 still running his own business. The membership was vital to the agency’s expansion, he said.  

“I think Amex helped us have a more global perspective,” Wilcox said. “We’ve been able to hear what’s been happening in places around the world because of being part of a global network.”  

Wilcox is now 74 but is still active in the agency’s operations. His son, Wallace, handles much of the day-to-day management. Wallace, who has worked at the agency for 35 years, got interested in the Internet in 1992, before there was a World Wide Web. He later bought many Web addresses -- including HolyLandTours.com, Passion-Play.com, airticket.com, christiantours.com, europeantours.com, live-photo.com, visithi.com, visitco.com, and CruiseReservation.com -- that have been instrumental in generating traffic. The agency has 219 Web sites in all.  

Wilcox Travel has three full-time employees who do nothing but Internet work, including Web design, hosting, e-mail blast services and search-engine optimization.  

The agency was severely set back after 9/11 (and the current Israel-Hezbollah conflict has created another challenge), but Wilcox said he refuses to lay off people when business drops, counting on attrition to take care of staff reductions.  

“God has protected us through difficult times,” he said. From the move to Asheville and his introduction to Billy Graham that started the agency’s growth, Wilcox said, “God’s hand was in it from the start.”