Holiday Tours

shewas scheduling a cruise out of Miami and they sent her a bus that wasmissing two rows of seats,but instead had wooden planks bolted where the plush reclining seats should have been. Nancyhad four people ride on a two by ten all theway toMiami,Florida. Once that tour returned, Nancy said shewas done. She then began a fight to gain the authority inNorth Carolina to operate as amotor coach company,whichwas not an easy task.After receiv- ing help fromSenator JesseHelms,she received her authority to operate.She put her house up as collateral and bought her first bus–a usedTrail- ways bus to operate her own tours.The bus driver, who had driven all of her tours,Dwight Thompson, came on boardwith her and that’s howHoliday Tours reallygot started.” “Today,we’re still oper- ating tours likewe did in 1978,”Moody states.“The difference is we’ve got over 70 buses and our primarybusiness isn’t tours anymore.The tours are still a part of what we do,but what we found over the years,is that the charter side of business could ramp and scale up a lot quicker than the tour side could.There HOLIDAY TOURS they said theword‘free,’shewas hooked.She hung up the phonewith themand immediatelypulled out the phone bookand started calling every local number she could,saying,‘I’mdoing this trip toTennessee.Would you like to gowithme?’She filled a bus and theywent. And that’s howit started.” Nancy soon realized that she needed someone to manage operations while shewas on the road,so she tapped her daughter,Rhonda,whowas in college,at the time.“Mymomstepped in and became the first reservation agent that we had,”saysMoody.“Shewas in the office everyday taking phone calls,taking res- ervations,andmaking sure that whenNancy returned froma tour,therewas another sold-out tour ready to go right backout.”Rhonda’s husband,Gary,would come to join the business,as well,alongwithDavid Brown,Nancy’s son,whowould become the President of Holiday. For the next year or so,Nancyacted as a tour op- erator,growing a group of peoplewhowanted to travel with her wherever shewent.“Then the situation turned,”Moody recounts.“What happenedwas,people started calling the bus company,asking for Nancy’s tours.And instead of being excited that the company had a tour operator that was growing their business, theygot a little jealous.So,they started sending her equipment that had failures,equipment that wasmiss- ing seats,equipment that wasn’t working properly,or didn’t haveAC in themiddle of summer. “The strawthe broke the camel’s back camewhen