Friday, May 10, 2002 | 11:14 a.m.
Bill La Macchia Jr. was looking forward to implementing some new ideas and freshening the culture at Mark Travel Corp. last Sept. 4 when he took charge of the company his father established in 1974.
A week later, he was scrambling to keep the company alive.
"Sept. 11 was horrible, first for all the victims," La Macchia said. "But it was also tragic for our industry as well. The day we had to lay off about 20 percent of our work force was my father's worst day in business."
In addition to losing more than 300 workers, MTC lost one of its key subsidiaries -- Sun Country Airlines. The airline, which flew charters and scheduled service from cold-weather Midwestern cities to sun-drenched vacation spots such as Las Vegas and Mexico, had just replaced its aging Boeing 727s with a factory-new fleet of fuel-efficient 737 twin-engine jets.
The weight of the new jet debt and the collapse of the aviation market after the terrorist attacks landed Sun Country in Bankruptcy Court. Eventually, a buyer emerged and Sun Country has regrouped and is flying again, but not as a MTC entity.
"September and October was about survival," La Macchia said. "By the end of the calendar year, we should be back to a growth mode."
And much of the path between surviving and growing has led through Las Vegas. That's why La Macchia was honored during National Tourism Week, which ends today with a banquet at which he'll serve as keynote speaker. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman declared Thursday "The Mark Travel Corporation Day" and gave La Macchia a ceremonial key to the city.
"One of the key ingredients in bringing visitors to Las Vegas is the travel wholesaler," said Manny Cortez, president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. "Wholesalers have been responsible for bringing well over 80 million visitors to downtown Las Vegas and the Strip and Mark Travel has been very loyal to Las Vegas."
In 1988, La Macchia Jr. started his travel and tourism industry career as a front desk clerk at the Golden Nugget. He eventually worked in sales and marketing for the Mirage and the Golden Nugget before taking an executive position with Sun Country Airlines.
MTC is the flagship company of privately held La Macchia Enterprises. The owned brands under MTC include Funjet Vacations, Trans Global Vacations, Adventure Tours, Town & Country Tours, Mountain Vacations and Funjet Vacations Europe.
Under those brands, the company packages travel, incorporating air transportation, lodging, car rentals and show tickets.
In addition to those owned brands, MTC manages Southwest Vacations, US Airways Vacations, United Vacations, MGM MIRAGE Vacations, AeroMexico Vacations and MexSeaSun. By managing those companies, MTC's customer base grows regardless of a customer's loyalty to a particular airline or hotel. The company now has more than 2 million customers a year.
Headquartered in Milwaukee, MTC has 15 offices across the globe, including one in Las Vegas.
In Las Vegas, the company also owns Vegas and More, a customer service company that provides a variety of travel services, and Showtime Tours, a bus company that makes scenic tours to Hoover Dam, Laughlin and the Grand Canyon as well as airport shuttle trips to local resorts. Those two companies have a total of about 160 employees.
MTC is contracted to fill more than 6,000 rooms a night -- about 3 percent of the Las Vegas inventory -- and has agreements with several resort partners, including MGM MIRAGE, Mandalay Resort Group, Park Place Entertainment and Harrah's Entertainment properties.
La Macchia said sales have rebounded to the point that they regularly hit about 90 percent of the contracted amount. He and resort executives are studying the nation's travel rebound after the Gulf War in 1991 for a blueprint. The big challenge now, he said, is for the industry to get room rates back to pre-Sept. 11 levels -- the same challenge major airlines are facing on plane tickets.
The company works with its partners toward that goal, which is why he is confident travel agents will always be a viable alternative to Internet travel companies.
"We both play in the same world," La Macchia said, "but I'm convinced good travel agents will be around forever because, like us, they provide the best customer service."
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