Mark Twain would have really liked Kay Schreiber who, for the past 10 years or so, has taken groups of tourists on Mississippi riverboat excursions ”“ despite the general lack of interest in the leisurely river trips among most Connecticut Yankees. “Steamboating is really a hard sell around here,” she said. “Connecticut magazine would probably never have an ad for steamboating.”
But that hasn”™t stopped Schreiber from taking Ohio and Mississippi river cruises herself or with friends. “I”™ve traveled on the riverboats more than 15 times,” she said. “I”™ve really lost track of the number.”
She discovered overnight cruises on the flat-bottomed paddle-wheel riverboats in the 1990s when she was in a travel agency in Danbury. “I saw a special on the Delta Queen Steam Boat Company on PBS that focused on what steamboating was all about. I thought ”˜I”™ve got to do that.”™ I love Americana, love history, and love seeing and doing new things.”
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Ready for a change
Schreiber”™s stint as a travel agent was stuck among a bevy of other jobs and careers. “I was a stay-at-home mom for many years,” the grandmother of four said, then entered the job market as a temp in a few Danbury corporations and doctors”™ offices. “I did a lot of different things,” she said. “Nothing specific.” A temp job at an early personal computer store turned into a permanent position as assistant store manager before the chain was bought out and the Danbury store closed.
“When it closed down, I re-examined what I wanted to do next,” she said. “I was always fascinated by the concept of being a travel agent, so that”™s what I did. I started calling some travel agencies ”“ there were a lot more of them then, but now people are booking themselves ”“ asking what I have to do to learn the business.”
She wound up volunteering her time at an agency in downtown Danbury, working without pay until she learned everything about the business, then joined the agency and stayed five years until “I was ready for a change,” she said. “After a while looking up airfares for people got a little boring.” But she had been able to do a fair amount of domestic and international training as perks of the business, including meeting up with riverboating representatives at trade shows and discovering riverboating.
In 1997, “I transitioned from travel to tourism, which are sister industries,” she said. “Travel is sending somebody away, tourism is bringing them in.” She was hired as a consultant with the Danbury-based Housatonic Valley Tourism District, then joined the tourism district as sales manager in 1998. “I was just selling the area, selling tours, helping people plan everything from weddings to reunions to basketball tournaments to Scrabble championships,” she said.
The tourism district promoted the Danbury area, “which doesn”™t have a major draw, like the Statue of Liberty, so you have to be creative.” She began selling “hub-and-spoke tours,” booking tours to New York City or Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, but using Danbury hotels as the hub. “You would stay in one place and come and go,” she said. “A lot of people don”™t like to have to pack and unpack every day.”
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She stayed at the tourism district until the state closed it down in 2003 and dumped the nine-town Danbury region into the 48-town Waterbury and Litchfield Hills districts and slashed the consolidated tourism district budget. “I went to the Northeast Connecticut district, trying to pick up the pieces of what we had done here in Danbury and put them in the new district,” she said. “But you can”™t cover 48 towns instead of nine and give each their due,” she said, so in 2004 she joined Danbury”™s special tax district ”“ CityCenter ”“ as manager of the downtown entertainment and dining district. “I did almost everything,” she said. “I designed brochures, did all the financial stuff, did the mailings ”“ whatever needed to be done.”
She stayed until late 2006, when she was offered a position as community relations specialist with MCCA ”“ the Midwestern Connecticut Council on Alcoholism ”“ to raise the visibility of the Danbury-based treatment organization. “I do presentations at service organizations and doctors”™ and lawyers”™ offices, social services and the courts ”“ anywhere that could potentially refer a client to MCCA,” she said. “I reach out into the community, make connections, hand out business cards. You never know who might need help.”
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America”™s front porch
Back in 1997 when Schreiber started consulting for the Housatonic Valley Tourism District, she began her own side business she called Kay”™s Tours to take local groups to national parks, on day trips to the Hudson Valley and West Point and the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., school groups to Boston and Quebec ”“ and riverboat cruises.
“I loved the travel and tourism business so much, I started Kay”™s Tours like a fallback position,” she said. “It”™s a huge undertaking to do group tours,” and it”™s still a bit of a fallback position for her. “A Web site is on my to-do list,” she said. “I do about two or three tours a year. I do more planning than booking. Even if you”™re doing a day bus trip, you have to make reservations for the bus, reservations where you”™re going, get deposit payments ”“ it takes a lot of work.”
But it”™s work that she loves. Someday, when she is able to retire from the 9-to-5 world, “I”™ll concentrate more time on seeking more customers.” That”™s in the future, though. In the meantime, there”™s vacation steamboating. “It”™s really hard to describe,” she said of her passion. “There”™s something about this mode of transportation, something transporting about being on a paddle-wheel steamboat going 5 to 12 miles an hour, literally viewing our country from a viewpoint that very few of us get to see. I used to think three nights was enough; now a week isn”™t enough. It”™s like sitting on the front porch of America, watching it go by. You can”™t find a better way to travel.”
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