Sunday, November 1, 2009

When I was a kid I didn't think much about the importance of going on vacation. I just knew I wanted to go. When I was studying at the University of Pennsylvania, I never thought I would eventually wind up in the "tourist business." Most of my friends were, of course, looking at Wall Street or family businesses. I had no prospects of either. In any event, here I am, in the tourist business.

When we would go on family vacations, the thing we probably laughed about most was the adventures and misadventures of "being on the road," for, you see, I can only remember one time in my entire growing-up experience that we ever went any place on an airplane. My father was a real estate broker and he once made a large sale and, to celebrate, we took the Golden Flight (first flight) on Continental Airlines in a Boeing 707 from Chicago to Los Angeles to see Disneyland.

Jet travel at that time was so new that they actually served our meal while we were still on the ground and the seats faced each other like a train-style set up. When the plane took off on its steep ascent, the trays slid off the tables into our laps.

It was a big deal to fly anywhere back then. In fact, Kim Novak, a pretty big star at the time, was two rows up from us in first class (just to be specific, she was, we weren't). My father got her autograph and also got into a lot of trouble with my mother.

Most of the time, however, if we didn't take the train, which we only did twice, we always drove the family car to our vacation destinations. Going on vacation in those days was not nearly as predictable as it is today. Most of the motels -- and they were called motels, a new phenomenon denoting a motor hotel -- were mom-and-pop operations with no guarantee of exactly what you were going to find after you paid in cash (no credit cards back then) and got your key, which was attached to an odd-shaped piece of plastic with your room number on it. In fact, even when I try to think real hard, I can't think of a motel chain other than Holiday Inn, which was pretty upscale in those days. When I say upscale, you must remember I am talking about the first Holiday Inns that were required by headquarters to be equipped with a fly swatter hanging on the back of the door. I'm not kidding. Most of the places we stayed in had military starched sheets and smelled like disinfectant. They universally had a piece of paper wrapped around the toilet indicating it had been "sanitized."

The side-of-the-road offerings were also pretty much of a new industry. The first chain restaurant/store I can remember was Stuckey's, and what we fondly called a "tourist trap." Our family joke was to: "Get stuck at Stuckey's." The attractions ranged from the largest herd of the smallest horses (pygmy ponies) to the largest alligator in captivity and things like Bob's Biggest Ball of Twine. Inevitably, these would be announced miles in advance with homemade billboards and, upon arrival, there was more or less a half mile of plywood fencing so you really couldn't see what was going on inside. Believe me, there wasn't much. If we can thank Disney for one thing, it is raising the bar of expectations to where today, rip-off attractions don't last very long. Of course, the entire industry has gone to motel chains, restaurant chains, attraction chains and gas station chains. You know what you are going to get before you even go through the front door. It kind of took the adventure out of traveling, for, while some of the places were disappointing and ludicrous, there were also some pretty neat places and interesting real people. Being surprised went a long way to making travel the adventure that it was.

More to the point of why I am writing this is that I have become quite proud of being in the tourist business. As I said earlier, the importance of being on vacation never really occurred to me, but I have come to reconsider making memories a very noble profession.

Our vacations usually consisted of piling into the station wagon with the dog and slowly making our way from Miami up to North Carolina, where we spent every summer vacation that I can ever remember except for the one trip out to California. My father had a rather quixotic dream of finding a water-powered grist mill and having that be the new family business. Thank God he was more of a visionary than an entrepreneur.

In any event, I came to understand early on in my career in this business that those family vacations in the car put us in the closest proximity to each other for the longest period of the entire year. After marriage and my own family, I came to realize that I spent more time with my "working family" than I did with my actual family.

You see your family members very briefly in the morning and probably not again until the evening, after which most of the time is spent isolated with computers, TV or homework. Even on weekends, family members tend to go in different directions unless there is time spent together going out on the boat or some similar pursuit. Vacation time is extraordinarily important time. In fact, I would say it is the most important time in the year that families spend together. They are out of their element and forced to interact with each other. If some of you read this column to get even a smidgen of advice, I would tell you the best vacations are those where you are cut off from computers, televisions and other such things, even though it is becoming more and more difficult.

We, as a community, should be very proud and take very seriously the business we are about. We are in the business of making people's vacations enjoyable and worthwhile. Obviously, if we do it well, we will be compensated for our efforts. Remuneration aside, I have come to believe that the pursuit of excellence and being good hosts and giving good value to our visitors could well be one of the noblest callings there is.

Chris Belland's Hindsights & Insights column appears here on Sundays. Belland also writes a biweekly column on environmental issues, which runs in our Sunday magazine, Solares Hill. All of his previous columns are available on his blog: hindsightsandinsights.blogspot.com. Contact Chris at cbelland@keysnews.com.