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Rita Tsang - Up, up in the air

By Karin Klassen

Soft spoken, thoughtful, elegant Rita Tsang has redefined the image of an international business tycoon. This mother – and new grandmother - has achieved a target few women would even imagine in their wildest dreams. Last year Tsang, President and CEO of her own privately held travel company broke a billion dollars in sales…a billion dollars. That makes Tour East Holidays one of Canada’s largest and most successful independent travel companies – ever. But that’s just the icing on the cake for Tsang. Her long list of accolades includes the Royal Bank’s nod for lifetime achievement at the Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards, top honours from the Association of Chinese-Canadian Entrepreneurs, Profit Magazine’s Top 100 Women Entrepreneurs Award, and the Women’s Executive Network’s Canadian Top 100 Most Powerful Women Hall of Fame designation. In 2005 she achieved her biggest honour to date: Tsang was awarded the Order of Ontario.

“It’s a testament to our being in the business for a long time. Tour East Holidays has done well with entrepreneurial spirit, with financial results and community outreach,” says the humble Tsang.

And it all started with a little homesickness

In the mid-1970s, Tsang, daughter of a Hong Kong family, came west to study British literature at the University of Toronto. Always having been an A student, Tsang craved the independence of adventure far from home but got more than she bargained for in a strange, new city. Fighting feelings of loneliness, Tsang noted how onerous it was for her fellow Asians to go back and forth to keep connected to family – so important to her culture. She decided to do something about it. She was in her third year when, along with elder sister Shirley Chu and handsome husband-to-be Andrew, she approached a travel agency with an idea. They would buy in bulk, investing $50,000 of what she calls “love money” from her family in wholesale tickets they would then sell to fellow students for a
small profit.

It was win-win. The three studied by day and worked by night in their newly formed East Asian Travel Service with an office conveniently and, as it turned out, strategically located across the street from the University of Toronto campus. Tsang finished an accelerated Bachelor of Arts degree, shelved plans for law school and never looked back. “We were very supportive of each other so we very easily filled each other’s shoes. I think together we just made
a great team. I came to Canada to go to school and then just stayed on… ”

What goes up must come down

It wasn’t all smooth sailing for the industrious Tsang, however. Tragedy struck in 1982 when a plane accident in Guangzhou claimed the life of her business partner and life partner – husband Andrew. Andrew had been the outgoing personality of the business, the salesman and relationship builder who was the face of the company. It was a time Tsang recalls as devastating, something she had to reach deep into her Chinese roots to overcome. “That’s part of life. It happens. You can mourn but the important thing is you have to look to the future. The family needs you, the business needs you. You have to be sensible and gather your strength.”

Alone and caring for her daughters Camille and Claudia, Tsang turned to her parents for help. She recalls this time as one in which she felt she was the ‘husband’ in the family with her mother taking over the major responsibilities of child care. “For a long time, I never really knew what my daughters packed for lunch because I would get up very early to go to work and come home very late. I am glad that I never had to worry about babysitting problems or the PTA,” jokes Tsang.

While Tsang was still recovering from the loss of her husband, her sister Shirley, the financial genius in the company, was diagnosed with cancer. It was a fight they waged for five years and then in 1994 also lost. It was a period of unbearable sadness for Tsang, who found strength in her faith and in her growing responsibility to family. “If I collapse, what happens to the kids? I always have to be a good role model for them. I have been upgraded. I am the older sister now. I am the older daughter now. I have to be someone the parents can rely on and look up to. You have your own private feelings but there’s a sense of responsibility that has to come first.”

On top of the personal tragedy, the travel industry was being battered by world events such as SARS, attacks on the World Trade Centre and subsequent scares that increased air security to the point where people stayed home. Airline travel ground to a halt. But it was, the unflappable Tsang points out, just a temporary set-back.

“Certainly people are thinking twice, especially if it’s a short trip. But then again, if the price is right, people are forgetful. They get used to things so when they know it’s the new norm, they accept it.” The business recovered and flourished.

If you build it, they will come

Tsang has had to keep on top of her game in a quickly evolving industry. The advent of the web brought new challenges as customers flocked online to book cheap tickets in favour of the more expensive visit to an agent. But that also brought opportunity. Tsang invested heavily in technology that enabled Tour East Holidays to become a content and service provider to web companies. She knew there was more to booking a trip than the web could provide so her services expanded to include what she calls “travel fulfillment”.

“People are looking for both information and service when they book a trip,” she says. “Booking engines are business tools and not real travel agents. When someone makes a booking online, if there are complications or questions, we would provide customer service on behalf of the web company. It takes us into a very different arena altogether.

“But automation can only do so much. Behind the scenes, you still need a human being to take a look and to come back and say, ‘you know, this would really make better sense; can I help you in making this possible?’ It’s a whole different and lucrative market,” says the insightful Tsang.

Even that’s not enough to be considered a full-service provider, however, as Tsang notes the importance of maintaining a presence for people who still want face-to-face interaction. She has 18 offices with 200 employees across Canada and in other major cities including New York, Beijing, Shanghai and in fact all over Asia, still her biggest market and growing - growing at a rate of 35% a year over the past three years. Tsang still sees a burgeoning business with Asia’s newly mobile middle class, a situation Prime Minister Stephen Harper helped when he visited China and began negotiating Canada’s status as an ‘approved destination’. This effectively opened the door for a whole new class of traveller – something Tsang is ready for.

“We’re so used to being free to travel but China sets restrictions on people to prevent currency from leaving the country. Since the early 1990s they have imposed the ADS (approved destination status) policy. The Chinese can only travel to countries that have that status such as Australia and New Zealand. It wasn’t until last December when Harper went to China that the country started the approval process. This is a huge market so this is indeed a great opportunity for Canada and for all related industries like retail, real estate, investments and so on.”

Tsang anticipates that within five years, a million Chinese travellers will come to Canada, something that will be a great opportunity for those well-placed to handle the arrangements. “We’re hoping the Prime Minister of China comes to the G20 summit which is going to be held in Toronto this fall. If he can finalize the deal with Canada then there will be a lot of tourists coming in groups from China just like in the early days when you would see Japanese groups visiting in large numbers. You will see a lot more of that because people have an allure for this warm, friendly country.”

The savvy Tsang isn’t putting all her travel eggs in one basket though. While specializing in the Asia Pacific region, she spots the trends for other hot destinations which include the Middle East – Dubai, Jordan and Israel to name a few. She also points out that travel adventures are a boon to business but bring on a whole new level of responsibility. Gap years for teenagers in between high school and university have become the norm as well as trips where people can do some good and help people in developing countries.

“People want to feel good. They want to be able to not just take but to give back. They want an experience. It’s a great thing to help them see the world and to contribute. But while people want the comfort of travel, they have to be safe at the same time – otherwise they’ll stay in their backyard. As much as people want to go off the beaten track we have to be vigilant that they go to safe places. That’s what the experts do – they are reputable people who know what they are doing.”

Keeping both feet on the ground

One of the ways Tsang finds peace is by contributing to the community as a volunteer in a variety of causes including bridge-building events in arts and culture. Tour East Holidays has sponsored the high profile Toronto Dragon Boat Festival and Chinese Lantern Festival at Ontario Place as well as other fundraising activities for causes such as the United Way, North York General Hospital and Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care. Tsang has served on the Quebecor-Ontario Advisory Board and the Royal Ontario Museum Board and she is currently a governor of the University of Toronto, Campaign Executive for the Royal Ontario Museum's Renaissance ROM China Initiative and on the Board of ECHO, an organization that promotes and improves women’s health in Ontario. “I feel that, by contributing my time to these different causes, it helps me separate myself from work; this is very relaxing and rewarding work
for me.”

Tsang has also kept her business all in the family, one of the benefits of being an entrepreneur. Annie Tsu, her younger sister, holds the position of Director and Executive Vice President of Tour East. Fluent in Mandarin, Tsu has been invaluable in establishing Tour East’s strong foot hold in China.

Both of Tsang’s daughters, now graduates of the University of Toronto, also have a role in the company. Claudia Tsang, 27, is in charge of marketing, which includes the fun role of stylist and fashion consultant for Mom, who looks and dresses like a model. (The women all share a passion for clothes and shoes, counting Versace, Dolce & Gabbana and Valentino as favourites.) Camille Tsang, 31, heads up business development which helps keep them at the forefront of new travel horizons. Both daughters are married and have just become mothers themselves making Mom Rita a grandmother of boys – a change in the formerly all-girl family! “What is the chance of two girls having two boys just days apart? Now my biggest joy is just to see them every day,” says Tsang.

Never having held a regular job and never having worked for others, Tsang only knows the ups and downs, the joys and worries of ownership. “Being an entrepreneur gives you a lot of flexibility. being your own boss is exciting; you can do your own thing – this is a great feeling. I don’t know what it would be like to work for somebody else. On the other hand, you have that sense of responsibility so you give 200%. It’s a lot of work.

“I have a strong will and a very open mind. I always count my blessings and I never feel things are going bad. You are what you think. If you’re depressed, that’s just not going to help anything. So you need to separate work from private life.”

Her advice to other Mompreneurs? “Everything is possible. You don’t have to be just for the family. You need to get out; there are always possibilities.”

And perhaps most appropriate coming from the creator of one of the most successful travel agencies in the country: “Always remember, the sky’s the limit.”

Pull Quotes:

Tsang anticipates that within five years, a million
Chinese travellers will come to Canada, something
that will be a great opportunity for those
well-placed to handle the arrangements.

“…travel adventures are a boon to business
but bring on a whole new level of responsibility.”

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