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Deeply rooted in the travel business By Claudette Covey After several years as a fund-raiser for such organizations as the Boys Club of Harlem and the Explorers Club in New York, Poe returned to her Little Rock roots. “I was lured back,” said Poe, adding that travel was most decidedly ingrained in her. She spent her summers traveling with her parents throughout the world and had virtually circled the globe by the age of 6. Poe, who is president of the agency her father, Fred Poe, founded in 1961, said she is teaching her own young daughter to experience travel in much the same way she did. “I want her to experience all the sounds, tastes and smells of the world,” she said. Poe wants much the same for her clients. “My thing is creating wonderful holidays,” she said, “and I love to do everything from soup to nuts.” Nothing gives Poe more pleasure, she said, than detailing to travelers the finer nuances between suites at the Le Georges V in Paris or arranging a hot-air balloon ride in Europe at the last minute. She stresses the importance of forging relationships with on-site companies in order to ensure that clients receive the absolute best possible travel experiences. “You just have to have relationships with on-sites,” she said, adding that she has honed excellent relationships with these companies and trusts them implicitly. “If my India on-site tells me a particular guide is fantastic, I trust them. We have that kind of relationship,” she said. Poe, who sits on the advisory boards of Conde Nast Travel and Virtuoso (Poe Travel is a member), is equally enthusiastic about making sure that the agency's upscale clientele get the best value possible. For instance, she will evaluate clients' frequent-flyer accounts to assure that they make the most of their miles. In one storied account, which was documented in the New York Times, a Poe client had to cancel a trip at the last minute that wound its way from London to Tanzania and onward to the Seychelles. The client asked Poe to switch his ticket over to his son. Poe did so, and also managed to get the son's visas and inoculations taken care of during the London stopover. A couple of days later the client had a change of heart, and Poe managed to rebook him on a ticket using frequent-flyer miles to join his family in Africa; the frequent-flyer miles had been donated by a friend. This type of Herculean effort is part and parcel of the way in which the 25-member agency staff conducts business. In large part, Poe believes the agency's guiding light is her dad, who has worked as a travel agent since 1958. Fred Poe serves as a mentor for the agency's travel counselors and has gleaned a reputation as the “the travel consultant's travel consultant.” “We defer to him,” said Poe, adding that he is able to create complicated trips to esoteric destinations seamlessly and quickly. “I had a request from clients who wanted to visit Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia and Greece,” Poe said. When she asked her father for advice on the itinerary, she said he was able to conjure up an entire itinerary in under an hour. Ellison and Fred, however, are not the only Poes who have a hand in the agency business. Tony Poe, Ellison's brother, joined the company as marketing director in 2003. For his part, Tony has won Abercrombie & Kent's Best Marketing Partner award and has been featured in National Geographic Traveler as a Palau expert. Ellison Poe is quick to point out that each staff member also plays a pivotal role in the agency's continuing success. Poe Travel's CEO and co-owner, Margaret Kemp, who began her career at the agency working as the General Services Administration and Army account administrator, has overhauled the operations and technology side of the business and developed the agency's fee structure. “She is fantastic,” said Poe. She and Kemp have a yin and yang relationship, with Kemp focusing on operational issues and Poe concentrating on the sales side of the business. Poe said she believes that working hard to ensure that trips are seamless is another key ingredient that lures clients back to the agency time and again. “We hunker down and get it done,” she said.
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Ellison Poe learned the family business from the ground up -- literally. One of her first jobs at Little Rock, Ark.-based Poe Travel was tending to the herb garden in front of the two Victorian houses where the agency has its offices. She has also served as the firm's receptionist, ticket deliverer and, of course, a front-line travel agent. “I worked here every summer, every Christmas and every spring break” while in high school and college, she said.