Travelog sold to Burkhalter Travel

It’s been a long and happy trip for Travelog owner Debbie Carrrao.

While she’s not totally retiring, she sold her Prairie du Sac travel agency to the Madison-based Burkhalter Travel, and Travelog is the newest of its eight branch offices.

The agency has been at the corner of Park Avenue and Washington Street in Prairie du Sac since 1987 when Carrao bought the building from her dad, veterinarian Duane Engh who joined the Sauk Prairie Small Animal Hospital with Dale and Joe Kelley and a group of other veterinarians.

“I was in business 27 years and we had our closing on the 27th of August, so that’s my lucky number,” Carrao said. “It is sentimental. It’s difficult to say good-bye, but I’m still a part of it.”

Carrao will scale back her working hours to Mondays and Tuesdays.

Travelog vacation specialists Debbie Sue Giebel, with ten years and Marcia Monaco-Bletsch, with 23 years at the agency, will remain full time.

As Corrao looks back on 40 years as a travel agent, she marvels at the changes in the industry.

In the 1970s and early 80s, travel agents wrote their own airline tickets and had to calculate the tariffs until President Jimmy Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act, removing government control over fares and routes.

It also ended the days in which airlines paid travel agents commissions on the plane tickets they sold. Agents didn’t have to charge a service fee.

“In 1995, I thought this is over,” Carrao said. “But people kept coming to us. They come to us for professional knowledge.”

She said that’s something customers can’t get from the Internet.

Technological advancements also brought change. It’s easy to go online and compare prices for airline tickets and hotels.

“Are you going to spend two days on the Internet to go to Frankfurt and then Spain, and a stop in London?” Carrao said. “Some people want to do that and rent a car and go on their own.”

Then came the recession beginning in 2008.

“We’ve had to reinvent ourselves in this industry several times,” Carrao said. “2009 was tough going for us. People weren’t traveling. Young people wouldn’t think about calling us for a ticket to Vegas. But when they’re planning a $5,000 honeymoon, they come to us to make sure their honeymoon is stress-free.”

Burkhalter Travel president Ed Mani said he and Carrao agreed the purchase was a win for both of them because they share similar business philosophies.

“We always have our eyes open to expansion,” Mani said. “If you don’t continue to grow, you die in this business. You can grow organically by increasing sales, and you can grow externally.”

Mani says he enjoys his job, often booking tours for groups of 100 to 1,500.

In the last two months, he’s been to Chicago, Hawaii and Arizona with large travel groups, usually corporate events for which he makes all arrangements and travels along to manage the trip and offer support.

In a few weeks, he’ll be traveling with a group to Panama.

Mani said he has no plans to change the business name.

“You don’t fix something that’s not broken,” Mani said. “They were going good before I got involved with it.”