We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shane Mahoney a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Shane, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
When I first entered the travel industry, a common question I encountered was, “Isn’t that industry dead? I thought no one used travel professionals anymore.”
The advent of the Internet has undoubtedly disrupted many industries, including travel. While technology has touched the travel sector, it hasn’t revolutionized it as expected. For the most part, the industry merely transitioned from paper brochures to digital ones, with the behind-the-scenes work remaining essentially unchanged. I saw this as my number one opportunity.
Many people have never used a travel professional or had unsatisfactory experiences. The truth is that the process of buying travel is often long, stressful, and time-intensive. While everyone dreams of a fantastic vacation, the reality of planning one can be daunting. This leads many to settle for less-than-ideal plans, like opting for cruises or returning to familiar destinations. Vacations should be about relaxation and enjoyment, not stress, as Staples perfectly captured with their Easy Button campaign.
To understand what Lugos Travel offers, it’s essential to grasp the traditional travel planning process. Typically, it begins with filling out a web form, followed by a lengthy phone call that delves into personal details. After this call, you receive a proposal several days later. If any changes are needed, the process repeats, often taking about three weeks from start to finish. This timeline can be particularly stressful for those planning their trips close to their preferred travel dates.
So, what makes Lugos Travel different?
Lugos Travel is the only company leveraging modern technology to provide instant travel solutions. Our clients receive fully customizable private, luxury tour proposals within 10 minutes without the need for initial phone calls or stress. We offer over 70 tours in 20+ countries, with durations ranging from 5 to 17 days. Prices are valid for travel on any day of the year, and clients can easily customize their tours online.
Most tour companies offer group tours with fixed schedules, meaning you’re on their time, not yours. At Lugos Travel, we specialize in private tours, allowing us to tailor the experience to our clients’ preferences. Everything is on your schedule, including departure dates. We have no blackout dates and offer consistent pricing for travel on any date.
Unlike other companies that use “from” pricing, which can be misleading, we provide one clear price for travel on any date. This transparency puts the power back in your hands.
Moreover, because we utilize advanced tools and sell our tours directly to clients, we can pass significant savings on to you. This means we offer private tours at prices comparable to our competitors’ group tours.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Personally, I’m a bit of a Renaissance man with diverse interests, chief among them being travel. Growing up with an American father and a French mother, I had the unique experience of traversing the globe from a young age. My father worked on an experimental oil drilling ship in the Indian Ocean for the first eight years of my life, which meant our family moved frequently. By the time I was eight, I had circumnavigated the world four and a half times, living in the U.S., Borneo, and Australia. These experiences sparked my lifelong passion for travel, although it took time for me to fully embrace it as a career.
My story has two distinct chapters. Before founding Lugos Travel, I started my career in vehicle finance with Ford Motor Credit. For over 12 years, I pursued various sales and marketing positions in the construction, home, and vehicle markets, each offering better opportunities than the last. These years taught me a great deal about the challenges many people face and gave me a deep understanding of the typical family’s journey.
At 34, I reached a turning point. I realized I had spent my life working for a mortgage rather than pursuing meaningful passions. I wanted my life to have more impact and fulfillment. However, I was uncertain about what path to take. My initial idea was to become a ski instructor in the French Alps, driven by my love for skiing and the desire for a significant change from my life in Florida.
Just three weeks before selling all my possessions and moving, an article my mother clipped from France Magazine changed my trajectory. It featured Mike Baudet, who had transitioned from running a real estate agency in Colorado to starting a ski school in the French Alps. I reached out to him with a long email, sharing my own story and aspirations. Mike generously offered to speak with me, and our four-hour conversation the next day altered my course.
Mike suggested that my plan to become a ski instructor might not be the best path and instead recommended exploring the role of a tour operator. At that point, I had no idea what a tour operator was. For your readers, a travel agent typically acts as a middleman between clients and tour operators. On the other hand, tour operators design and organize the entire travel experience, including everything clients will see, taste, touch, feel, learn, and experience.
With time on my hands, I immersed myself in learning about the travel industry and contemplating how I could offer something unique. Four weeks of research later, exactly 13 years ago today, I founded Lugos Travel. My primary goal was to provide Americans with an easy and safe way to experience the world as I had, removing the stress from planning and enjoying vacations.
I named the company Lugos after the ancient god of all arts and protector of travelers in Gaul before Julius Caesar’s conquest. Since then, we have grown each year, continuously enhancing our services and offerings to create exceptional client experiences. We have crafted unforgettable memories for thousands of people, celebrated countless anniversaries and honeymoons, welcomed babies with babymoons, and helped our clients realize their dreams of exploring the world.
Today, my team and I have the privilege of improving many lives, turning dreams into cherished memories. I am truly fulfilled and honored to live my dream while positively impacting so many others. I am deeply grateful for the opportunities Lugos Travel has provided for me and my family, and I eagerly look forward to creating wonder for others every day.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
At Lugos Travel, we manufacture an experience that is greater than the sum of its parts. Our process is far more complex than simply clicking a “buy” button on a website.
In the early days, we built every experience from scratch, often exchanging over 350 emails per tour. It was time-intensive and effort intensive. Initially, I had no prior experience in the travel industry. I relied on sheer determination and hard work to overcome challenges. Over time, I learned about industry tools and how to streamline our operations.
As we refined our operations, we streamlined the process for our clients. Our booking system is a testament to the ease and efficiency of booking travel with us, making it simpler than any other company worldwide.
One of our greatest assets has been our lack of prior experience in the travel industry. This allowed us to innovate without preconceived notions of the “right” way to do things. We analyzed industry standards and practices from other sectors to develop our best practices. This approach has enabled us to innovate in an industry that has operated similarly for over 60 years.
Over the years, we have established partnerships in every country we operate in, managing these relationships with contracts that clearly define what a Lugos Travel tour should be. Unlike many travel companies that handle each tour as an individual deal, our contracting approach brings stability and consistency to our tours. This ensures that all clients receive the same high level of service, whether it’s their first or fifth time traveling with us.
Today, we pride ourselves on delivering a consistent and dependable tour experience across all locations. Our clients benefit from our knowledge and partnerships and enjoy the exceptional service that defines a Lugos Travel journey.
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
Entrepreneurship has been a roller coaster, and we’ve faced many challenges over the years, but none more so than COVID-19.
We had been growing by double digits year over year and were poised for a record-breaking 2020. We saw a 200% increase over 2019 in January and February, having just released several new tours and destinations, including Peru, Vietnam, and Japan. Our whole team was excited for the year ahead.
In March, my wife, who also works in the business, was hosting a shopping trip to Paris. Her group was in Paris when the President announced that all Americans needed to return to the USA by Friday. The group was scheduled to return on Saturday, so immediate action was required. Within six minutes, I was on the phone with the airlines, rebooking their flights for Friday. An hour later, the airline’s hold time was over seven hours. We changed their flights and upgraded their return limo to a party bus. The group had a blast, and those at the airport were quite envious.
However, we soon realized there was no foreseeable future for selling travel. Over the next 15 months, we sold zero tours and made zero revenue. We managed to keep our staff through EIDL loans and PPP, but it was an incredibly challenging time.
A sticker on my water bottle says, “Destitutus Ventis Remos Adhibe,” Latin for “When the wind fails, break out the oars.” The quarantine nearly killed us, but it also allowed us to implement changes I had long desired.
We knew how cumbersome the process of buying travel was and wanted to improve it, but we didn’t know how. The pandemic changed everything, providing the space to rethink our industry and bring meaningful change. Most travel companies focus on beautiful pictures of destinations, but we wanted to eliminate the stress of planning a vacation. We aimed to offer a vacation from planning a vacation.
Our new process allows us to deliver any tour proposal in 10 minutes, with pricing valid for travel any day of the year. This promises our clients a stress-free vacation at every step, and the Lockdown allowed us to see this dream become a reality.
As a result, in the last half of 2022, we sold 90% of our best year, and in 2023, we grew another 62%. This year, we are on track to double last year’s sales, if not more. Our clients have spoken and love our vacations as much as they love buying their travel from us.
The virus tested our resilience and propelled us to innovate and excel. We emerged more robust, efficient, and dedicated to delivering unparalleled travel experiences. The future is brighter than ever, and we’re excited to continue turning dreams into unforgettable journeys for our clients.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lugostravel.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/lugostravel
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/lugostravel
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shane-mahoney-lakeland/
- Twitter: https://x.com/LugosTravel
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC00vqiP7gj-ZihqgEeflb0g
Image Credits
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