Reflecting on 25 Years in Business
By Hank Schrader, USMA ’71, Europe Destination & Europe River Cruise Expert
Today is the 25th Anniversary of us being in business—yes, our journey has been full of amazing events, highs and lows, and, most of all, helping some great people travel better.
We have evolved in an environment of constant change in the travel industry.
Not only have we adapted, we believe we now thrive, but to say the least it has not been an easy journey.
So, this week, I’d like to write about our journey.
But, before we start, we never could have achieved one success without your help and trust—we never will forget you have made us what we are—THANK YOU!
Ready?—let’s go together and learn all about our 25 years!
How did the Idea for our Business Originate?
Martha Anne Schrader has a degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management. I have an MBA.
While in the Army, in my last assignment, I was the lead instructor of the US Army Fitness School and constantly on the road. My travel plans were constantly changing and Anne would research and often purchase tickets for me to meet the Army’s needs.
Later, while employed at Kalmbach, she handled their corporate travel.
We felt this background, with specialized travel industry training, could help us start a profitable business.
Our Short History of 25 Years
We started off as a hosted agency affiliated with Summit Travel in 1995. We have always been home based, but few were in the travel industry in 1995. Now, more than 60% of all travel agents are home based.
Our business first started in Wisconsin, and then move to the state of Washington, as I pursued my football coaching career.
We had to start over with each move, as our ability to find new clients became quite a challenge. Somehow, we managed to balance these challenges with the demands of a football coaching career.
We survived the elimination of airline commissions, the terrorist attack of 9/11, the 2009 recession, and now COVID-19 travel conditions, each obstacle making us a stronger and better business to serve you.
Now, we reside in Texas, but only about 11% of our clients reside in the greater Houston area.
We are a mom and pop business. Both of us are certified, professional travel agents. Over the years, we have grown a small but highly devoted groups of clients.
Hank and Anne in Regensburg, Germany, with their newly purchased hats in 2019 during the Christmas Markets
We are now considered leading experts in European River Cruising and European Tours by our industry.
At the Captain’s Table on an AmaWaterways river cruise
Our Qualifications
Martha Anne Schrader has earned a degree from the University of Houston in Hotel and Restaurant Management.
She is a Certified Travel Counselor (CTC) by the Travel Institute, considered the gold standard in travel agent certification. She is also an Accredited Cruise Counselor (ACC) by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), as well Luxury Cruise Specialist also from CLIA.
She is also a Destination Specialist in Western Europe. She hold numerous other specialty designations from individual vendors.
My beautiful and talented wife, Anne—I sure am a lucky man!
Henry Carl Schrader, Jr. has earned 3 college degrees. I graduated from West Point in 1971. I also have earned a master’s degree from the University of Washington in Physical Education and a master’s degree in business administration (MBA) from Long Island University.
I am also an Accredited Cruise Counselor (ACC) by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), and a Destination Specialist in Western Europe. Prior to my entry as a full time travel advisor in 2011, I retired from my high school teaching career. I am a former World Geography and Advanced Placement Human Geography teacher. I have earned 6 vendor specialty certificates from river cruise vendors.
I was a guest speaker on a Webinar Wednessdays for AmaWaterways in July of 2020, to help other travel agents sell river cruises.
How do our Clients see us?
We have numerous client testimonials on our website and on Google.
We have around 40% repeat clients, which is considered very high in our highly competitive industry.
Many cite our personal on site experiences, our knowledge of vendors, and, most of all, their trust we will do the right thing for their benefit.
Perhaps the best of all, our clients have learned we get them the best value trip for their money, and this is most cited benefit we provide to those who use our services.
Our Business Achievements Since 2016
Most notable was the 3 years required to plan and execute our 2019 75th Anniversary of D Day tour. This was for many an “once-in-a-lifetime trip”. We were able to lead 33 great folks on this adventure.
We organized as a LLC in 2016.
We are accredited members of the Better Business Bureau since 2017, so you know we are a vetted business.
We started to emphasize our niche of luxury trips, emphasizing European river cruises, European tours led by us and Luxury Ocean cruises to benefit you, our clients.
We emphasize group travel—it often is more fun for you to travel with friends, families or like-minded folks.
We added our blog to the website instead of on a different platform, which resulted in huge SEO gains for key search terms associated with our niche and resulted in large increases of visits to our website—all to benefit our current and future clients.
We added both a River Cruise Questionnaire and an improved Travel Request Form to our website, making it easier for you to tell us about your wants and needs for an upcoming vacation.
We created and added 50 European Travel Guides Request forms to the website as a way to help you learn more about a destination you may want to visit.
We created and added River Cruise Port Guides Request forms to our website as a method for you to learn about stops during your cruise and to determine if the route you are considering is the right route for you.
Our Unique Qualifications
As stated earlier, we write a weekly blog, usually 2000 words or more, full of our personal pictures to stay in front of you.
We want to help you have the right vacation, at the right time.
We have good results from our website and blogs which provides us over 6000 search engine visitors to our website annually.
For specialized trips, we use targeted client lists of our past and potential clients. We also post special group European river cruise and tours on our Specials page of our website. This helps you not waste time and learn about trips that really interest you.
In 2018, we received a national level Trendsetter’s award as runner up for the best target marketing program from TravelAge West Magazine for our special 75th anniversary of D Day tour we led in 2019. We were featured in their magazine along with the other 8 winners.
Holding our TravelAge West Award in 2018
Our Primary Specialty--Are We the Right Folks to Plan your Next European River Cruise?
Our knowledge of Europe river cruises is exceptional.
We have been on 18 Europe river cruises, written over 60 blogs about all aspects of Europe river cruises, have 3 items on the first page of Google, we have 51 port guides (they are free) for you, and we have help dozens enjoy river cruising in Europe.
And if that we not enough, we have 50 free guides to most Europe Cities you might want to visit before or after your Europe river cruise.
My Final Thoughts
Wow! What an amazing journey! 25 years helping others have great trips to savor life a little more, and make memories.
By visiting Dream Destinations, and trusting your vacation to our professional skills, your journey to a great trip begins here!
Bur we will never forget, we never could have come this far without you, our wonderful travel friends. The friendships we have created a special: Thank You So Much!
We are travel experts, ocean and river cruise experts, and Europe destination experts. We have first-hand knowledge of almost anywhere you want to visit in Europe. We know our products and the vendors who sell them to you. We have designed special tours for dozens of clients, led several and will continue to find just the right vacation that will exceed your expectations. As you can see, our full service agency can get you to almost anywhere you desire to travel and provide you a great experience and vacation.
When you are spending your hard earned money for a vacation, you want an advisor who can match you with the right trip. You want someone who will understand your expectations and fuel your anticipation (or excitement) to get you the best possible trip experience.
Whatever your Dream Destinations are, we are here to help you get the best possible vacation based on what is important to you! We will provide you high quality, expertly planned travel. Please give me a call 713-397-0188 (Hank) or email me at hschrader@dreamdestinations.com. We want to help you: Savor life…make memories…Visit Dream Destinations! Your journey begins here!
HANK is a certified Western European Destination Specialist (DS) who has been traveling to Europe for 48+ years. He is also an Accredited Cruise Counselor (ACC), conferred by the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA). This recognized expert in cruise and leisure travel is a retired Army Officer, and taught World Geography for 8 years. He is a `71 graduate of West Point and has earned 2 master’s degrees. His other Certifications:
AmaWaterways River Cruise Specialist
Viking River Cruise Specialist
Scenic River Cruise Specialist
Emerald Waterways Specialist
Avalon Waterways Specialist
Brit Agent
