Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexander Novikov.
Alexander, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
We started travel business 12 years ago with another founder who had 10-years experience at that time. My background allowed me to develop back-end/web application that would differentiate us from the competition right away. We did not compete with OTA, We actually widely used web content and combined it with our own experience for consulting.
We focused on our customers delivering precise and on-time as promised. We had a good relationship with our vendors and passed on all possible discounts to our customers as well. Our expertise and customer focus made us an absolute leader in the industry. Our back-end system also helped us a lot in gaining this leadership.
The combination of human factor and technology is our strength. Our next project is online travel insurance aggregator travelinsurancemaster.com will be live early next year.
Has it been a smooth road?
The smooth road is only smooth due to extremely hard work. Any mistake makes it rough, so likely we had few mistakes if any. You have to be very cautious with fraud that Travel agencies are attracted to. We have been and still are a target of many fraudulent schemes and the only experience allows us to avoid big troubles.
As financing, the travel agency is cash positive business, so in general, financing is not an issue. However we also finance travelinsurancemaster.com from our operation, that makes it somewhat challenging. We would be happy to have an angel financing especially now when we are about to go live and need good marketing funds.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
First of all we the largest in New England Apple Vacations agency selling Caribbean All-Inclusive packages and holding the highest title (Crystal Agency) for last 6 years. We are very proud of it!
We also sell a lot of airline tickets. Air tickets experience is a particular contributor to our position with Apple and our success in general. The last few years we also became a small River Cruise tour operator (Rhine, Danube, Douro rivers) operation on Russian speaking Americans niche.
And finally, we are about to enroll travel insurance aggregator and become an OTA in travel insurance. We have an expertise in travel insurance and hope our site will be very useful to all travelers.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Boston is great for any business, at least small business. We came from Russia and we keep saying “God Bless America” for its care for business and for seniors! I wish it would care for kids as much, but that is outside of the interview questions.
Pricing:
- As crystal Agency, we often have our exclusive promotions for All Inclusive Vacations: $50 or $75 or $100 Off
Contact Info:
- Address: 16 Webster St, Brookline MA 02446
- Phone: 617-879-2644
- Email: alexn@yeswetravel.com
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