Byrd Bergeron has an important milestone to track the age of her business, The Travel Byrds, which turned five years old last month. She started the travel agency as a sole employee when the oldest of her two children was 3 months old. “My husband likes to joke, ‘Were you just bored?’”
Instead, Bergeron says she sought stability, something she did not experience growing up. She was born to a mother still in high school, and from her birth, until she was a high school senior in her home state of Louisiana, her mother had been married seven times. She didn’t have the luxury of always knowing she had a place to stay or where to get her next meal.
“My issue has always been with foundation and stability, and I see that as owning a business because no one can ever fire me,” she says. “For me, business ownership was always the end goal.”
This year, The Travel Byrds, hit $8 million in revenue, and expects to climb to $13 million next year, she says. “Luckily as adults, you’re allowed to make your own future.”
The average vacation she books costs around $11,000. She doesn’t deal in business travel. She now has 33 employees, all women, who work for her remotely. Early on, she decided she would add on workers who could commit to the research it takes to plan a vacation and who also had a love of details. Many of her employees, like her, lacked stability before going to work for The Travel Byrds, she says.
“I can still picture in my head several faces that made all the difference and I want to be that face,” she says.
Bergeron says the business specializes in overseas travel. She takes the time to talk to the travel boards of the places her clients will visit. “I want my clients’ dollars to go into the pockets of the people who live there, the ones who are actually giving the tour or teaching the cooking class,” she says.
Bergeron told her story last week at the Rotary Club of Charlotte’s program titled “How I Got Where I’m At.” The program, held a few times each year, gives new members a chance to introduce themselves. Bergeron has only lived in Charlotte for three months, and joined Rotary soon after arriving. She says she was looking for a way to become involved in the community.
“Everyone pointed me to Rotary,” she says, giving the local club a plug. “They said, ‘If you want to be plugged into the city and if you want to do good things in Charlotte, Rotary is where you want to be.’”