Hank Armand, A Travel Visionary

Hank Armand is regarded as something of a visionary in the ultra-competitive world of travel and tourism. Nowadays, booking flights to distant climes has been made easy thanks to the Internet. But this has not always been the case. Some twenty years ago, booking even a simple two-week holiday took considerable time and effort – not to mention the expense of booking fees, travel agent costs, and greatly inflated airfares. How times have changed. The Internet has made booking a holiday as easy as buying a CD – and this is due in no small measure to the foresight and ingenuity of people like Hank Armand.

Hank Armand started his first travel agency more than 30 years ago. By his early twenties he was already a confirmed backpacker – no small feat in itself in those days of high airfares, inefficient tour operators, and frequently fraudulent hoteliers. Moreover, the choice of destination was limited to the amount of contacts any individual travel agency held in its portfolio. In practical terms, this often meant traipsing from one agency to another, merely in order to reach a particular place at a particular time. It was a frequently tedious, expensive, and frustrating process – and if one were to offer one single reason for Hank Armand deciding to enter the travel and tourism business it would be down to his own experiences of traveling in those dark times. Indeed, much more could be said about Hank Armand and his frustrations of dealing with tour operators.

However, it was mainly due to those experiences that led Hank Armand to consider the possibility of setting up his own travel agency. After a period spent studying the strategies of travel agencies, he realized that there was a definite gap in the market for an innovative and forward-thinking travel agency. From little acorns do mighty oaks grow. First one and then another of his agencies prospered. Indeed, he seemed to have a Midas touch in business, and it was not long before he was a bona-fide self-made millionaire. And then the Internet came along.

Unlike some of his competitors, Hank Armand was quick to see its potential for facilitating travel. He created the first of many travel sites online and this allowed him to offer a greater range of holiday destinations at a far lower price than he had been able to do before. Success followed success. Thanks to the vision of Hank Armand, we are now able to travel to virtually anywhere in the world – safely, comfortably, and cheaply. Find out more about Hank Armand on Scoop.it

Hank Armand - Leaving His Comfort Zone

Business mogul Hank Armand is well known for his travel agencies and the business empire that he has built up over the last 30 years. In both business circles and with the general public he is quite well-known, and he is often cited as a classic business role model and someone that came from humble beginnings to make a fortune in an ethical and very American way. What is less well known however is what he likes to do in his free time. Many people are fascinated by the idea of what the rich and famous get up to in their free time, as we all sometimes like to dream and imagine that we are those rich people live all the time and money to do whatever we please. We are here today to give you a small insight into the everyday life and hobbies is of Hank Armand. It may surprise you greatly to realize that one of Hank's biggest and strongest passions is the animal world and nature. Ever since childhood he has loved animals and he had many pets while she was growing up. He lives in a rural area and has many animals living on his property and constantly likes to get out into nature and experience wildlife in its natural habitat. He owns a number of dogs and cats and also has a chicken farm at the bottom of his garden from which he likes to eat the eggs they lay on a regular basis, and sometimes uses as an ethical source of meat. Less surprising may be the fact that Hank is a passionate traveler, and he uses a huge amount of his free time to go to wild and interesting destinations in the far corners of the globe.  The fact that he has made is fortune in the travel industry would be a good indicator to the fact that he is a keen traveler and this was in fact one of his main inspirations in getting into the travel industry in the first place. He says that some of the most interesting destinations he has been to include Papa New Guinea, Gambia and South Africa. He makes a point of going to places that not so many westerners have been to, at this point he has done all the tourist things one could imagine and he has a strong sense for adventure. He likes to get out of his comfort zone when he can, which as you can imagine is actually quite difficult for someone that is a Millionaire on the well-known business tycoon. To get out of his comfort zone he really does have to go to some wild and isolated destinations.