A Travel Agency Keeps Its Ties to Ireland

By PENNY SINGER

Published: October 11, 1998

WHAT type of travelers were your forebears? If they emigrated from Ireland to New York in the 1920's, they were steamship passengers who might well have bought their tickets from Patrick J. Grimes, the owner of Grimes Travel in Manhattan.

''When my grandfather started his agency in 1921, 100 percent of his business came from selling steamship passage to Irish emigres bound for New York,'' said P. J. Grimes of Tarrytown. ''His agency soon became one of the largest, if not the biggest, ethnic agency of its kind in the New York region.''

Mr. Grimes, a third-generation member of the Grimes family and the third Grimes to work in the family business, recalled that 30 or so years later, his grandfather was the first person to buy a ticket to Ireland on the new airline Aer Lingus.

''Grimes has always been synonymous with Ireland,'' he said. ''My grandfather helped sponsor many of those who bought tickets from him for citizenship. Later on, he organized charters to Ireland, the Flight of Gaels, he called them, for the sons and daughters of his original customers who were looking for their roots. He also owned The Irish Echo, and when he retired, he gave The Echo to his son John and the travel agency to my dad, Patrick H. The H. stands for Henry, since he was born on the Fourth of July.''

In the early 1960's Patrick H. Grimes opened Grimes Travel on Mamaroneck Avenue in White Plains, to take advantage of the upsurge in corporate business, and it quickly became the dominant office. The Manhattan office was closed four years ago. ''Our clients were loyal,'' P. J. Grimes recalled. ''Many were second- and third-generation members of one family. We continued to do business to Ireland, but corporate travel developed into a new lucrative profit center with a lot of the corporate contacts coming from the leisure side. Leisure also expanded as customers began having clan reunions. Also golf outings -- Ireland is great for golf -- became very popular.''

In 1996 after Patrick H. Grimes had been retired for several years, P. J. Grimes decided to quit the industry. ''The travel business as we knew it had changed,'' he said. ''For one thing, airlines were cutting back on our commissions, which reduced profits on corporate accounts. Leisure became the stronger market. The Internet was also cutting into business, so when I had an opportunity to get into another field, I took it.''

Enter Norman Crampton, 57, a former Aer Lingus executive. After 32 years with the airline, Mr. Crampton decided to take a severance package that Aer Lingus put on the table. ''I had been in so many positions,'' he said, ''from being a member of the consulting team in Zambia for a year to teach them how to run cargo facilities to marketing custom services to responsibility for the airline's regional purchasing, real estate facilities and communications.''

''It was a good position, but when Aer Lingus decided to get rid of all its ancillary businesses -- and there were many: not only did the company run the airline but also under the Aer Lingus's umbrella was the company that ran most of the nursing homes in Britain --and decided to divest itself to concentrate solely on its core business, my job vanished along with a lot of others.''

Yet, with it all, Mr. Crampton said, Aer Lingus behaved ''absolutely magnificently.''

''We were called in, 10 at a time, and they told us if we didn't want to accept the package, we were absolutely guaranteed a job at the same grade,'' Mr. Crampton said. ''Seventy of us, from the North American division, accepted the package. What is significant, I think, is that the 70 of us represented 1,847 years of service, an average of 27 years each. That tells a lot about Aer Lingus. You don't often find such cooperation and loyalty existing between a company and its employees.''

Mr. Crampton said that in the next two years he did nothing ''or very little.'' He added: ''Some consulting, watching my son's baseball games and working on my house in Yonkers. A fellow I know asked me to start a travel agency with him, but I wasn't interested.''

Yet when he heard the Grimes agency was up for sale, he was very interested. ''I knew all the Grimeses,'' he said. ''I first met Patrick J. Grimes at the airport when he was doing all his travel to Ireland tours on Aer Lingus. 'This,' I thought, 'is a perfect fit.' ''

The proof is in the pudding. ''Although I was hoping to retain the Grimeses' clients, I know that whenever a business changes hands, there's always some fallout,'' he said. ''But the client retention rate is higher than I had imagined. I also still have five members of the staff.''

As for making changes in the agency, Mr. Crampton said he has made almost none.

''Why change success?'' he said. ''The Grimes agency is a tradition. For instance, a customer came in the other day, showing me a letter dated 1923, describing how helpful Mr. Patrick J. Grimes had been to his family by arranging their passage and telling them they could pay when they were in funds. I believe in building on what we have. Sixty percent of our business is travel to Ireland, and 75 percent of our clients have an Irish connection. They use us for domestic travel arrangements as well as travel to Ireland.''

Corporate travel generates 25 percent of volume. ''Strictly along nonethnic lines,'' Mr. Crampton said. ''Much the same applies to walk-in traffic. Definitely nonethnic.''

Not only are clients with Irish roots customers of Mr. Crampton's, but Ireland has also become a favorite destination of sportsmen. ''They go for the fishing and the golf, which are both superb,'' he said.

And when they plan weddings, young Irish couples living in New York inevitably go home to get married. ''Besides the sentiment, it's a lot cheaper in Ireland to have a great wedding,'' Mr. Crampton said.

As for the pace of business, he is satisfied, but he added: ''If I was 30 years old, the last thing I would buy is a travel agency. The margins are just not there. But financially I don't need what I once needed. I've already sent six kids to college.''

As for the future of travel agencies, Mr. Crampton said that despite what the airlines are trying to do, to cut out the travel agent, they will always play a vital role. ''Airlines sell only their own product. We sell every airline product and more. This is a service business. A customer can call every airline and compare prices, but who wants to hear, 'Please hold, the waiting time will be 34 minutes'? ''

Alan Rich, head of the Westchester chapter of the American Society of Travel Agents, the professional society of travel agents, said old-fashioned ethnic agencies like Grimes are a thing of the past. More than 70 years ago, when Mr. Grimes started his agency the tourist agencies were heavily regulated, but that is not true today of agencies serving an ethnic clientele. ''They're tucked away in a corner of a bodega or a small insurance agency,'' Mr. Rich said. ''It's frequently a case of 'Buyer, beware.' ''

And in the wake of shrinking airline commissions the smaller, independent, less established travel agencies are facing hard times.

''Either they impose a service charge or they can't continue in business,'' Mr. Rich observed. ''It's a time of consolidation in the industry. For instance, my own agency, Rich Travel in Harrison, has absorbed 13 independent agencies in a relatively short space of time.''

Photo: Norman Crampton, who took over Grimes Travel in White Plains from the Grimes family, working at his desk. (George M. Gutierrez for The New York Times)