Learn more about why our founder's family decided to dive into running a travel business and being relentless in their mission to help families actually enjoy their next vacation.
One of our travel journalists recently sat down with Ben and Val to get the behind the scenes story on Famvia Travel’s History!
Background on Our Founders
How did you meet?
Val: We met in 2009 when Ben and I were working in the same office building here in Texas. We got married a couple years later and have built such a cool life together with 3 amazing children. You probably have seen them in some of the b-roll in our socials or videos and heard some of their voice overs too.
Have you always loved to travel?
Ben: I traveled a lot for work early in my career, even hitting the million miler milestone before turning 30… which isn’t a great thing looking back on it. That amounted to a ton of time away from family, but it provided a lot of opportunities to me to be able to provide for the family of course.
Since we met, we always enjoyed traveling around wherever we could. My happy place is on a beach or hanging out on the top deck of a cruise ship, while Val prefers being in the mountains or road tripping around the US. We have been able to travel a lot now with the kiddos and our youngest has now been to Disney more before turning 4 than either Val or I ever did in 30+ years!
What do you do for fun outside of travel?
Val: We are really active in our local church and I homeschool our kiddos. We have a hobby farm here with lots of fruit trees and our chicken experiment ended between it being 3 million degrees outside last summer and a pack of coyotes. Not great, but we are very fortunate and really enjoy the life we have been able to create together as a family.
Running a Travel Company
Is building a traveltech startup from the ground up challenging?
Ben: Of course! BUT we are very fortunate to have surrounded ourselves with amazing team members who are fully bought in to our mission. Whether you are on our content team, creative media team, engg team and of course our travel advisor team - you can hold your head high that even though the work is hard, it is very rewarding.
What does a normal day look like?
Val: Beyond the routine stuff like homeschool and daily life at the house, we spend a lot of time talking about and thinking about content to produce. I focus mostly on socials and getting our messaging out there to folks while Ben is more on the tech and platform side.
What has you excited right now?
Ben: We like to say that we are relentlessly focused on improving the travel experience for families. We want families (of all shapes and sizes!) to actually enjoy each and every trip. There are several key areas that I think we can be proud of:
- SORS - this is our proprietary, internal tech which powers things like our site content, tools for travel advisors, the backend for our travel dashboard and so much more.
- Travel Dashboard - being able to see all of the details for your trip, efficiently manage quotes/book trips, see your travel rewards and more is something we do very well now.
- Travel Rewards - as we continue to scale this will be one of our keystone features because we are giving our guests flexibility when it comes to earning and using rewards.
At the end of the day, our secret sauce is our ability to weave every part of our business together to improve the travel experience for families.
The Future of Famvia Travel
What do your kids think of the business?
Val: They love allll the trips! Being able to homeschool the kiddos gives us a lot of opportunities to learn on the road and incorporate things that we are doing in the business into their education. For example, I can create a module about Alaska and do a deep dive into gold mining, Salmon runs, glaciers and more when we get ready to do an Alaskan cruise.
But seriously I think it’s the best thing for them to see Mom and Dad work insanely hard to support the family and build a lasting company from scratch. Building something new takes time and takes dedication and hard work. They will be able to look back in a few years and see the goodness that comes from pursuing your dreams and crafting something amazing with a talented group of people.
Where do you think Famvia Travel is going?
Ben: Thinking ahead 5 years from now, we will be the premier destination for any family wanting to go on a trip. Our travel advisors take such great care of our guests and our guests will be able to actually enjoy their trip with our concierge-like experience. We are very aggressive in our internal targets and we know where we want to be.
Without giving away all of our secrets, we are building something unique in the way we connect planning with booking and of course earning travel rewards. Strategic partnerships with OTAs, travel suppliers or even teams like American Express Travel are all part of our roadmap.
And that’s a wrap!
Thanks Val and thanks Ben for taking the time to chat and share the history of Famvia Travel. The mission is so inspiring and our team is excited to be here!
Sound like a mission you can get behind? Join us here!
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