St. Albert's John Farlinger made a lot of good choices in life. The latest one was to sell his business Farlie Travel, he said.
After 35 years, the family-owned travel bureau changed ownership in late July, moving in with a group of agencies owned by Toronto-based Vision Travel.
That doesn't mean Farlinger is out of work. He's still booking trips, taking groups on tours to the U.S. and South America, and looks out for his staff. But he's also starting to plan for his retirement now, he said.
"When you do something for as long as I have – in March it will be 36 years – you owe it to yourself and your family to do something else or change or try to reduce your time and do some of the things you always wanted to do," he said.
Closing no option
Farlinger created Farlie Travel in 1978, after a six-year stint of playing with the Edmonton Eskimos. Back then it cost him $133,000 to purchase the business. Last year, the company grossed $1.3 million in sales.
Closing down Farlie Travel was never an option, he said. The decision was made because he wanted to retire but he also wanted to look after his staff and customers first.
"For me to get out of the business if nobody bought it, it's almost impossible," he said. "How do you say I will only work to a certain date but I will take new bookings?"
Farlinger said he passed on previous offers to buy his agency because the transition would have hurt his staff.
With Vision, all of them kept their job and salary, and there were only a few changes to the work environment – he now has three more staff members and there are improvements to the bookings system. He also said his staff will benefit from joining a larger company.
"All of the capabilities they have, the size, the suppliers. I think in terms of the customer and our staff we are all going to be better off," he said. "At this stage we won't invest unless we have to keep up with the newest technology."
He later said he never thought about it much but the personal relationships he developed with customers defined much of his business' success.
Both he and his wife Terri know most of their clients on a first-name basis, they go on trips with them, and are always available to address concerns. There are not many independently run businesses left like that, he said.
While that adds to the experience and the comfort of the traveler, he stressed that his clients shouldn't worry about the change in ownership.
"I think that they will believe that Terri and I would not sell to somebody who wouldn't have a lot of our goals and aspirations in how we run the business," he said. "We have to be honest with people."
Business as usual
Vision Travel started as a mom-and-pop agency in the early 1950s and since grew into one of Canada's largest travel companies, said Stephen Smith, Visions' vice-president of marketing and communications.
Today, the company owns businesses in 15 locations across Canada, most of which started out as individual, locally owned agencies that decided to group together, he said.
The company knows that it's important to continue existing relationships with customers, Smith said. That's why they kept two of the existing managers at Farlie Travel to take over leadership roles in the office, rather than bringing in new managers.
"We want to make sure that there is that presence in the office where customers are comfortable," he said. "We don't want to change that. We want people to feel comfortable who come in and still work with the same familiar faces."
Smith added that the company would slowly introduce the Vision Travel name to the community but for now the business will continue as Vision Farlie Travel.
Retiring next year
At some point Farlinger said he and Terri will have to negotiate a time where it's good for both parties to part ways. They haven't set a definitive retirement date yet because they are still organizing trips in the spring, he said.
There may even be a role for him and his wife in the agency once they retire, he added. But most of their business is already left to their staff now, and while they had a lot of fun with Farlie Travel, they owe it to themselves to catch up with their own lives, he said.
"So it's been a very, very, very busy time," he said. "It has flown by and I think selfishly it would be nice not to be behind anymore. It would be nice to get a haircut on time. It would be nice to work out again."
