Scott Ludlum had been working for a not-for-profit association when he and his wife decided to take his parents, his best friend and his best friend’s wife to Panama on vacation.“Panama was my wife’s native country so we knew Panama well enough to serve as their tour guides,” said Ludlum, Chief Travel Advisor, Panama Travel Consultants and Travel Journeys of a Lifetime in Riverview, Florida.“We all had such a wonderful time during the trip that I started thinking about how great it would be to start a business that would send clients to Panama.”A few years later, Ludlum incorporated his business, Panama Travel Consultants, after being invited as a hosted international buyer to a Panama Tourism Expo in Panama City, Panama.MORE Travel Agent“It was my first introduction to how a destination management company (DMC) works, as they were responsible for providing our transfers to the Expo and social events during our three days there,” said Ludlum. “It was really an incredible experience meeting with representatives from the best hotels and other tour operators and I knew instantly that my future would entail sending clients to Panama.Approximately two months after he returned from the Expo, he formally incorporated his business.“Immediately after incorporating, we sent our first clients who had a wonderful time on their 11-day vacation,” he said.Ludlum became a travel agent because traveling internationally is a true passion of his.“I am actually surprised that I did not become a travel agent earlier in my career since it really is my true calling,” he said. “I had been working as the Director of Strategic Business Initiatives for a not-for-profit membership association for about 13 years so I was getting bored and burned out. I was also wishing that I had an opportunity to travel more frequently and leverage my Spanish language and cross-cultural negotiation skills.”His undergraduate degree was in International Business, with a graduate degree in International Commerce and Policy.“Once I realized that, by starting our business, I would be traveling to Panama and other international destinations in addition to working with locals in many different countries, it really seemed like the job that I was born to do,” he said.READ MORE: Inspiring Ways Travel Agents Have SpecializedLudlum considers Panama his second home, so providing tour packages solely to Panama was an obvious choice.“As we branched out and started customizing vacation packages to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Ecuador and the rest of the world, we realized our true specialty was our ability to customize the perfect vacation package for FITs anywhere in the world,” he said. “We have also developed an unintended specialty in that our core clientele consists of active senior travelers that have an average age of around 72.”Ludlum said he didn’t intentionally market toward active senior travelers, but it certainly has worked out well given that retirees have the time and money to travel.“They love the opportunity to custom-design their own itinerary with my guidance while having their own private English-speaking guide with them while they are traveling in Panama,” he said.Ludlum works hard on behalf of his clients. In one particularly challenging case, a CEO had unknowingly made it past United Airlines and security with his wife’s passport rather than his own.“Upon arrival without proper documentation, which was technically a criminal offense, Panama’s Immigration Officials were essentially holding the CEO in a detention area,” said Ludlum.“There were no flights back to the U.S. that evening, and even if there, the CEO likely could not have returned to Panama, putting a major damper on the incentive travel event for the employees of his company.”Immediately, the Group Manager for the Tour Operator jumped into action and started calling every contact within Panamanian Immigration and the government that she had.“At first, the situation seemed extremely desperate because immigration was not willing to let the CEO enter the country without his passport,” he said. “But persistence and patience paid off and, after approximately seven hours of negotiations with Panamanian immigration officials and playing intermediary between United Airlines and immigration, we were able to negotiate a deal for the CEO to enter the country.”Due to the strong relationships that Ludlum had with the tour operator in Panama, he was able to avert what could have been a disaster.Ludlum said that one of the biggest challenges travel agents face today is the public perception that using the services of a professional travel consultant might be helpful if the price is right, but it is not really necessary.The best advice that Ludlum can offer other wannabe agents is, “really do their research and understand not only why they want to be a travel agent but what type of agent they want to be.”“Along with this I would strongly suggest they specialize in something or a destination(s) they are already interested in or that they could develop an interest in,” he said.“My specialty was a no-brainer because of my love for and experience traveling in Panama, but I also understood how much administrative work is required of travel agents, how complex and time consuming it can be to book cruises and that some services such as booking airline tickets are not very financially lucrative.”When Ludlum was exhibiting at the Travel & Adventure Show in Long Beach a couple of years ago, he met a prospective client named Ray Pearson, who had very limited and specific interests in traveling to Panama in order to experience the Panama Canal.“When I customized a short package of only about five nights that focused solely on his interests with his own private guide, Ray was super impressed with the extraordinary opportunity to truly experience the Panama Canal in several different ways,” said Ludlum.When Ludlum had his debriefing call with Ray after he returned from Panama, the call lingered for about two hours and marked the beginning of a sincere friendship.“I learned that Ray is an expert on Single Malt Scotch Whisky as he worked at Glenfiddich as the Global Brand Ambassador for many years,” he said. “I was also intrigued by the fact that he does in-home whisky tastings and that he teaches master classes at many of the Scottish Highland Games throughout Arizona and California. I didn’t know anything about Single Malt Scotch Whisky but was willing to learn.”Ludlum partnered with Ray to design their exclusive “Taste of Scotland’s Whisky Trail and Spectacular Sights” tour that led clients to about 12 different whisky distilleries throughout Scotland over a period of 10 days.READ MORE: To Niche or Not to Niche“I developed the marketing materials and Ray promoted our tour, with him accompanying the group in addition to the local Scottish guide,” said Ludlum. “I had been very keen to organize my first small group tour, and Ray had always wanted to be hosted on a trip to Scotland. It was truly a mutually beneficial partnership. The group just returned recently and, by all counts, the tour was a huge success.”When he’s not working, Ludlum loves visiting Panama, of course, but also loves traveling to Latin America:“I also have many places on my travel bucket list still to cross off that include, but certainly are not limited to, South Africa, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Belize and the Galapagos Islands."He said he’s proud to consider himself a Custom Travel Specialist.“As such, I customize vacation packages and itineraries as travel agents do but I also provide custom itineraries and pay commission to travel agents who have clients interested in traveling to Panama,” he said. “I thoroughly enjoy working with other travel agents and really appreciate their professionalism. It’s true that travel agents sometimes get bad press, but my experiences working with fellow travel agents has been nothing but exceptional.”For more information, visit panamatravelconsultants.com and TravelJourneysofaLifetime.com.