Mamia Reynolds, Travel Agent

Mamia Reynolds,

Travel Agent

Mamia Reynolds, 42, has been a travel agent for 16 years, the last six at TraveLeaders in Irvine, a national agency based in Coral Gables, Fla.

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This year has been like a roller-coaster ride.

It started as a banner year for us. We had just wrapped up the year 2000, which was just one of the biggest ever for travel, and in the beginning of 2001 the economy was still good and people were spending money to go all over the place. We were hustling like crazy just to keep up. We didn’t have to look too hard for clients; they were coming to us.

But by June it started to slow down. That’s the thing about our industry: We are usually the first to feel any change in the economic conditions, whether it’s going into a recession or coming out.

Production was running 20% to 30% under last year and we knew the good times were over.

Things continued to slow down right up to Sept. 11, and then they just froze. The terrorists did not just attack buildings. They attacked our industry, they attacked me.

Never has it been so bad. All we did for three weeks was issue refunds. We couldn’t pay people to take a trip.

Our company had to lay off something like 100 workers and everybody took a 10% pay cut. They also closed three of the agency’s offices in California. Luckily mine wasn’t one of them.

My husband is the night manager at the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort, and we would talk about how bad things were and wonder what was going to happen to us. I’ve never had to worry about that before, but with both of us working in the industry, we couldn’t help it.

I tried to focus on something positive, and I realized the terrorist attacks were forcing us all to think differently about our jobs.

We had to do better with customer service, give more hands-on attention to our clients and work harder. I knew we were really going to have to prove ourselves. We had to hustle just to survive.

You know, we all heard so much about the airlines and how much trouble they were in. But so many others have been hurt too. Not just travel agents but anyone who has anything to do with the industry.

The good news is that I think my profession has become stronger and smarter as a result. People value us more, because we helped keep them moving.

Only the best of the best will be standing after this. What the consumer ends up with are [travel agents] who truly care about them.

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As told to Bonnie Harris