Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: It's been a big week.
Speaker 3: Where are I guess maybe a couple of weeks where
Speaker 3: we've talked a lot about travel and hospitality. We had
Speaker 3: Booking Holdings and Expedia. They reported earnings last week, posting
Speaker 3: double digit increases in gross bookings in the first quarter
Speaker 3: or so, Matt, showing that there's strong demand for travel
Speaker 3: despite high rates of inflation in a cloudy economic outlook.
Speaker 2: So people are traveling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, especially good you had the last year you
Speaker 4: had the revenge travel. Correct, But it seems that there's
Speaker 4: really short supply still in terms of planes out there,
Speaker 4: hotel room they'll.
Speaker 2: Fully booked it off an overbook exactly.
Speaker 4: So I think everybody is eager to get at it
Speaker 4: and it's but it's more expensive ye then you would
Speaker 4: expect after this long And it's also difficult to get spots,
Speaker 4: like you said, in the plane, in a hotel room,
Speaker 4: you know, wherever you're going. Well, I guess some places
Speaker 4: are easy, but wherever I'm going, it's not so easy
Speaker 4: to get USA space.
Speaker 3: Well, it's even our guest has to say about that
Speaker 3: because Perilo Tours, their family owned travel company. They've specialized
Speaker 3: in travel to Italy for about eighty years or almost
Speaker 3: eighty years. Steve Perulo is a third generation owner president
Speaker 3: of Perilo Tours and he joins us on Zoom from
Speaker 3: Woodcliffe Lake.
Speaker 2: New Jersey. Steve, it is nice to have you here
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 3: What are you seeing when it comes to travel demand?
Speaker 3: Talk to us a little bit about it, Hi, Carol.
Speaker 1: Everyone in the travel business this year feels like they're
Speaker 1: a marketing genius and we're sold it out. We've never
Speaker 1: been sold out by May fifteenth before. We're not marketing geniuses.
Speaker 1: We have three years of pent up demand happening in
Speaker 1: one year. And if I had known, I would have
Speaker 1: because we priced and arranged these tours a year before,
Speaker 1: so we did this last year. I would have increased
Speaker 1: the prices and said I kept the prices to the
Speaker 1: same as last year. And so we sold out instantly,
Speaker 1: Greece instantly, Spain gone, Oh, why there's still some room.
Speaker 1: We still have some tour space. And for some towns,
Speaker 1: especially in Italy, the only way you'll get into a
Speaker 1: hotel is by using hotel rooms that were reserved by
Speaker 1: tour operators. They have tours and packages, so you could
Speaker 1: go independently as well, But if you want to get
Speaker 1: into a Malfie or downtown Florence or Tuscany, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be tough on your own if you don't go through
Speaker 1: a travel agent or a tour operator.
Speaker 4: So what's the problem. Is it just that there's so
Speaker 4: much demand or is there also less supply. We've had
Speaker 4: a lot of businesses that shut down during the pandemic
Speaker 4: and not all of them have opened back up. Is
Speaker 4: that true as well? In Italy and Greece and Spain.
Speaker 1: A little more last year, Matt This year, they got
Speaker 1: their act together and the workers came back. What they're doing,
Speaker 1: as any hotel owners should do, is they're raising their rates,
Speaker 1: they're cutting out the middleman and they're they're they're getting
Speaker 1: the money they needed from the last two years that
Speaker 1: they lost, and they should do everything they can. And
Speaker 1: that's hurting us, it's hurting everyone really, But you know
Speaker 1: what's happening. There's going to be a recession probably later
Speaker 1: this year, and things going to calm down and life
Speaker 1: will get back to normal.
Speaker 2: So wait, so you're you're booked up, correct.
Speaker 3: For the most part.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: So last year this time, Steve, were you booked up?
Speaker 1: No, last year we nineteen was the year to be,
Speaker 1: twenty was zero, twenty one was zero, and twenty two
Speaker 1: was about seventy five of a normal year, and this
Speaker 1: year one hundred and twenty five percent of a normal year.
Speaker 4: Steve, let me ask you about Venice specifically.
Speaker 3: We were just shown some footage and it was some
Speaker 3: of the flooding that we have certainly seen in Venice
Speaker 3: over the last few years.
Speaker 4: I'm just I'm just no, no, I mean, Venice is
Speaker 4: just it's often flooded. I know, I was. I've probably
Speaker 4: been there five or six times in the last three years,
Speaker 4: and at least half the time it's flooded. It's fine
Speaker 4: you walk up on these risers. But the coolest thing
Speaker 4: to me about going to Venice post pandemic is that
Speaker 4: they stopped the giant cruise ships coming in and it
Speaker 4: really made the whole experience more pleasant for me because
Speaker 4: there are far fewer tourists there are the cruise ships
Speaker 4: back or is Venice still you know again, a really
Speaker 4: pleasant place to go and it really kind of it
Speaker 4: feels out of the way when there's no giant cruise
Speaker 4: ships there, and you can find a little hole in
Speaker 4: the wall restaurant and you feel like you're kind of
Speaker 4: on your own. You've discovered it by yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Matt, the cruise ships are still coming. They're not
Speaker 1: allowed to dock. They came into the Grand Canal. Imagine
Speaker 1: these giants, six thousand passenger cruise ships coming down the
Speaker 1: Grand Canal like splashing water all over the place. So
Speaker 1: they moved them to a whole different area by the
Speaker 1: Leado to park there and move the people. So the
Speaker 1: people on the cruise ships are still they're they're coming
Speaker 1: back with a venge of these But you know, Venice
Speaker 1: is trying to figure out a way to like charge
Speaker 1: admission to the town, which they might have to do eventually. Right.
Speaker 4: I'm glad I saw it for those brief few months.
Speaker 3: Pricing here in New York City. It's coming, so you
Speaker 3: do it, congestion pricing in Venice, Steve, what is it
Speaker 3: that travelers are looking for right now?
Speaker 1: They're looking forward to get back out there.
Speaker 2: But I mean when they go on a trip, what
Speaker 2: do they want? What are they looking at? Do they
Speaker 2: not care? Because they've just they just want to be
Speaker 2: out there or what specifically.
Speaker 1: It depends on the market. You know, we have a
Speaker 1: tour market as an older market. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: baby boomer and a gen X market, and they and
Speaker 1: that that market has evolved over the last twenty years
Speaker 1: into a much more sophisticated market that hasn't changed. So
Speaker 1: they want to see, you know, the greatest hits of
Speaker 1: the world, as I do.
Speaker 4: The Paleo in Siena, the big horse race. There are
Speaker 4: you sold out for that? You still got a spot
Speaker 4: for Steve? What's that? July and June?
Speaker 1: I can get you two bleacher seats if you want them.
Speaker 1: I can get you two seats.
Speaker 4: What are the hottest events? You know, you've got stuff
Speaker 4: like that, very old school, and then you've got you know,
Speaker 4: Formula one kind of the newer modern stuff that's also
Speaker 4: amazing to see at Manza in Italy? What are the
Speaker 4: hottest events for you guys?
Speaker 1: And well, we don't yell in hot events because that's
Speaker 1: no way to make money. There's the hotels are gouging,
Speaker 1: everyone's you know, clutched it around the event. There's a
Speaker 1: big golf tournament in Rome and September there's a La
Speaker 1: Manza and there's a bunch of things happening.
Speaker 4: But Montepulciano we go there for a wine festival.
Speaker 1: That's the that's the center of Kiyanti region. Me Monte,
Speaker 1: it's really really good. We also go to San Jiminiano,
Speaker 1: which is another If you can get to Tuscany in
Speaker 1: your lifetime, you have died and gone to heaven and
Speaker 1: there's some space. We can still get you space. You
Speaker 1: got to go through somebody who has the space now
Speaker 1: because you can't get it on the open market.
Speaker 3: Hey, you talk about you know, your tours tend to
Speaker 3: be you know, skew older. I mean, what do you
Speaker 3: do to though ultimately attract a younger generation.
Speaker 1: You would alter the product the product. But in the
Speaker 1: travel business, if you want to make money, as my
Speaker 1: father taught me, you deal in groups, and older people
Speaker 1: like to travel in groups. Groups are fun, they become
Speaker 1: a family. It's not for young people necessarily.
Speaker 2: And so you do have active adventure tours though.
Speaker 1: Oh we have customized Italy, completely customized, so you can
Speaker 1: do anything you want. We can send you on bicycle
Speaker 1: tours or kayaki tours, all that stuff. This is what
Speaker 1: we do for individuals. But as far as money making,
Speaker 1: you know, in the in the travel business, you want
Speaker 1: to get groups together, you want to get cruise ships together,
Speaker 1: you want to get individual traveler ring and says, no way.
Speaker 1: People do that for the love of travel and the
Speaker 1: making travel rangers. But to make money, you know, a
Speaker 1: la carte like that. It's it's it's not a it's
Speaker 1: no way to to get rich. That's what my father
Speaker 1: taught me.
Speaker 4: What do you like in Spain? Steve? The Alhambra is
Speaker 4: one thing that I was lucky enough to go to
Speaker 4: a couple of times and it blew my mind. I
Speaker 4: love Andalusia, but obviously people like to go to the
Speaker 4: running of the bowls up north in Pamplona. What do
Speaker 4: you like in Spain?
Speaker 1: I love the horses, the Andalusian horses and being around
Speaker 1: them and riding them. I love the olive oil in Spain,
Speaker 1: that's the number one, you know. Gris gets their olive
Speaker 1: oil from Spain and Italy gets from Spain and then
Speaker 1: they process it. It's unbelievable. And the food and the
Speaker 1: paye and the flamenco, and this is what we offer
Speaker 1: on our trips as well.
Speaker 4: The flamenco. You got to see in Sevilla.
Speaker 3: Hey, just got thirty seconds left. I mean you guys though,
Speaker 3: do things all around the world.
Speaker 2: Is it still Italy where everybody is that the bulk
Speaker 2: of your business still? And just got about twenty five seconds.
Speaker 1: I got lucky with my family business going to Italy.
Speaker 1: It's the number one destination for Americans. It's been like
Speaker 1: that for years, it is currently this year. It's almost
Speaker 1: too much. It's almost too much.
Speaker 2: Where do you go?
Speaker 4: Hey?
Speaker 2: Where ten seconds? Where do you go when you want
Speaker 2: to break?
Speaker 1: Uh? Stay home? No, everyone likes Positano a Malfi, that
Speaker 1: area having on earth if you want to have a yeah,
Speaker 1: Lee Moncello and Mozadella. Oh my god, perfect fude.
Speaker 4: Steve is hungry too. We're all hungry.
Speaker 2: We all got to just go there, Steve, thank you
Speaker 2: so much.
Speaker 4: A great summer.
Speaker 3: Steve Perulo, President of Perulo Tours with us on Zoom
Speaker 3: in New Jersey.