Providing affordable travel accommodations to tens of thousands of clients worldwide

Brad Callahan is the president and CEO of Travel Advantage Network. For over 20 years, TAN has been dedicated to providing affordable, convenient, clean, and comprehensive vacation experiences to families around the world. The company gives clients the option to book travel destinations by region, date, or activity, and offers discounts through giveaways and excess inventory. TAN is an active source of philanthropy for the Baltimore community, and partners with a number of local charitable organizations year-round. Along with receiving an a-plus rating from the Better Business Bureau, the company has earned the BBB of of Maryland’s Torch Award, Maryland’s Chamber of Commerce and Baltimore Business Journal‘s Business Philanthropy Award, and a SmartCEO Magazine Future 50 Award.

EDWIN WARFIELD: What inspired you to start Travel Advantage Network?

BRAD CALLAHAN: The original vision for Travel Advantage was a way to provide low-cost, quality vacations to middle or mainstream America. Starting off in 1992, I had not travelled a whole lot, so it was somewhat aspirational for me, in a way, to pursue some of the fantasies and dreams that I wanted to fulfill in terms of vacationing. I thought what I was looking for, mainstream America was also looking for.

What is the company’s business model and value proposition?

The consumer will pay us an annual fee, and in exchange for that annual fee we now know they’re committed or at least interested in traveling with us. What we give them in exchange for that is that they’ve helped us cut down on marketing costs: we now know our audience so we can save them some money on the vacations. They save us some money and we’ll save them some money on the vacations.

What events led you to found TAN?

I grew up on the Eastern Shore in Maryland, in Queenstown, and nobody in my family had ever gone to college. There weren’t a whole lot of words of encouragement to go to college from high school guidance counselors or anybody else, but I did pursue and went to school in Virginia for a couple of years. I needed to take a gap year, and then ended up at Towson University where I finished with a B.A. in Psych.

While attending Towson, I was working job to job to job and ended up in the vacation space. As I graduated I continued to stay with this vacation industry job for a couple of years—which I enjoyed, and I made some great money, but I saw a better model out there. I saw an opportunity to really perfect the service side of things. It felt like the organization I was with was much more concentrated on the sales and marketing side. By enhancing the service side, I wanted to make sure what we were delivering exceeded what the client expectations were.

At the start of the business it was easier to define myself by what I wasn’t. I wanted to be the answer to a couple of things. We were not a typical travel agency. In fact, there were many things that we did that were opposite of what a travel agency did. We were not timeshare. Many things that we did were different than what a timeshare does.

That’s how we started off and we found some very good solutions for the business model and for the consumers by being the answer to what were limitations within some other industries. As the internet came along, as other companies on the internet—Expedia or VRBO or some of these other companies—came into being, we continued to define ourselves by “that sounds great—what aspects don’t they do?”

What aspects do you do that they don’t?

If you travel through Expedia, there’s a certain rating that you get from consumers but there’s not necessarily a consistency in the product ratings. Now, if you go to a Marriott every single time, you would know what to expect, but through Expedia they may bounce you to different hotels or pull up some different options. With us, a client coming through Travel Advantage has the expectation for certain levels of service, certain levels of features, certain levels of accommodation, certain level of responsiveness. So, if they’re on vacation and the air conditioner doesn’t work, or they feel like there’s a component missing in the property—they feel like it should have two blenders instead of one, or should have a second toaster because they have a larger family coming in—we’ll run that in to them.

Why is this service important to you personally?

I grew up in a family of three boys. My parents got divorced early, so my mom was a single working mother of three, not really introducing a lot of opportunities to vacation. In college, as I was introduced to this travel business, it did strike a chord with me that this was something that I personally wanted to pursue.

I saw an opportunity to help families that were very similar to my family growing up. How can we help those other single mothers who have a family of three young boys to go on vacation? What better way than a platform that is built around saving money and providing quality vacations? The two were married together, and in my mind it just made a lot of sense, and it did fulfill some burning desire in me to be able to offer to others what I didn’t have growing up.

Connect with Brad on LinkedIn

ABOUT OFFIT KURMAN

Offit Kurman is one of the fastest-growing, full-service law firms in the Mid-Atlantic region. With over 120 attorneys offering a comprehensive range of services in virtually every legal category, the firm is well positioned to meet the needs of dynamic businesses and the people who own and operate them. Our eight offices serve individual and corporate clients in the Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Northern Virginia markets, as well as the Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City metropolitan areas. At Offit Kurman, we are our clients’ most trusted legal advisors, professionals who help maximize and protect business value and personal wealth. In every interaction, we consistently maintain our clients’ confidence by remaining focused on furthering their objectives and achieving their goals in an efficient manner. Trust, knowledge, confidence—in a partner, that’s perfect.

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Edwin Warfield, CEO of citybizlist, conducts the CEO Interviews.

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