Direct Travel Consolidates Res Sites On Both Coasts

<B> Direct Travel Consolidates Res Sites On Both Coasts</B>

By Sarah Welt

<I>New York</I> - Citing escalating costs, Direct Travel Inc. has closed the doors to its Long Island office, just 15 months after it opened. Direct now will consolidate operations into its Manhattan reservation site.

Direct's Los Angeles reservations center also recently rolled operations into its San Francisco location.

"Business in a reservations center did not warrant its own office from a cost perspective," said marketing and technology executive vice president Michael Steiner. "For our clients, it didn't matter if they were in a res center on Long Island or in New York City."

Direct Travel still has onsites at corporate clients in those two locations, as well as one reservation center in Boston and three in the Washington, D.C., area. The agency also plans to embark on a low-cost reservation center--"not in a major city," Steiner said.

A year ago, Direct planned to have a presence in half a dozen cities and regions by the year 2000 (<I>BTN,</I> Sept. 8, 1997). But "things in the past year or so from an economic standpoint don't lend themselves to additional brick and mortar," Steiner said.

"Instead of investing heavily in real estate, we have continued to make investments in technology, specifically automated booking," he added.

Indeed, Direct Travel expects to add about $20 million in new business in the fourth quarter, Steiner said.