#ThrowbackThursday with Dallyce Macas

I got my start in travel after transitioning from successful management positions in the restaurant and hospitality career. Andy Steffens (Sunflight) & pal Olga (Last Minute Club) were hugely influential on moving my mind from restaurant management to travel. So glamorous their lives seemed! HA!

After completing the Canadian Travel School course, including the opportunity to co-op at a travel company, I interviewed at a GSA for a group of airlines that were servicing a rather volatile area of the world. One of my duties was to check the bombproof mailbox. I decided that if I am going to be maimed in the name of travel, I may as well be paid for it.

I moved onward to get my start at Clarke-Way travel. Full service meant not just being the front line travel agent, but also walking (often running!) paper tickets over to the offices of the Barons of Bay Street. I was eight months pregnant and Air Canada went on strike! Mayhem. Back in the day, we shared a Reservac terminal to try and manage this.

After mat leave, I cold-called April Clarke, the HR manager of a small, upcoming company called Rider Travel. Boom!

We did what it took to win. Our headquarters was in a historical building, where occasional rodents made appearances in the middle of client visits.

Always in a hurry, the third floor stairwell was the place where it all happened – no time for the elevator. Meetings were held while tearing up or down the stairs to and from client meetings.

Back then, we had something called Rider Weekends. The whole company went away to a resort in Canada, the US or Caribbean for two days of hijinks. It became legendary. It was a reason to stay with the company. It was the best networking event you could ever hope for. And hijinks indeed, but we don’t kiss and tell.

We were pioneers, rogues and generally coloured outside the lines of the travel industry. We helped create ‘travel management’. This was a modern day start–up – we just didn’t know it. The company doubled size overnight. Many of our illustrious management earned nicknames such as the Little General, the Cockroach, The Iron Lady.

I was 33, female, and made VP in a time when that position was still a rarity for a girl. It never occurred to me that CEOs were expecting a cowboy when they had a meeting with ‘Dallas.' I can’t decide whether the name confusion worked for or against me; I do believe I saved a few major accounts with the right choice of dress & heels on certain days.

The company continued to grow and was sold. It was a new world; with a U.K. shareholder to please, we were much less nimble. While many stayed the course, I took a small upstart division called Attaché private. Attaché was one of Canada’s first, luxury travel & concierge services. We assembled one heck of a great team & became the choice of Canada’s ‘who’s who’ for travel services. Oh, the stories of the rich & famous! But of course, we don’t kiss & tell.

I then joined Navigant. It was another bold company, acquiring small and medium sized Canadian travel companies. It was a reunion of sorts, with many of the team being Rider alumni. Older and more mature, it was like ‘Rider Lite.’ It was fun and successful. So naturally, it got bought. Carlson Wagonlit was the suitor.

I then went to work for another travel super power, TUI Travel plc.

This time, I was focusing on the world of adventure travel. Guess what? Shareholder expectations to be met, managing acquisitions, change management and rocking people’s world well outside their comfort zone. I felt like George Clooney playing the part in the movie Up in the Air. No one, but no one, wanted to see me visit their office. They feared ‘synergies.’

So what do I take from a career in the business? It is one of the best industries in the world to be part of. 

Where else can you combine business acumen, building partnerships and at the same time, spend a lifetime doing what most people wait for retirement to do?

Two years into starting éminence Canada (if you haven’t noted, I am a serial entrepreneur) I am looking forward, not backward.

Recently I was talking with Lindsay Perlman from Ensemble. He mentioned that with the experience gained in his career, he could write and teach an MBA programme. I couldn’t agree more.

The travel business is complex and tough. At times, it demands that you stretch beyond your own abilities. At times you go beyond your own personal ethics, much to my chagrin. And then, you find yourself hosted to a travel experience that touches your heart and soul, in a far flung part of the world. It’s magic.

Don’t quit; stick with it. The future is very bright for the travel industry.