Have Rod, Will Travel
Fish Quest!
from Trust the Leaders Issue 21, Spring 2008
Another day at the office: landing a peacock bass in the Amazon.
Scott Swanson wakes up each morning with a dilemma most executives can only dream about: where to go fishing? The fantasy job is managing director of FishQuest, a specialized tour company based in Hiawassee, Ga.
From this sleepy little mountain town, Swanson directs his company’s fishing adventures around the world. Any given day may find customers casting lines in the Amazon, Alaska, Africa, Australia or any one of 50 other international fishing destinations.
In 2008, the company expects to handle about 1,000 clients — at least half of which will head south to the Amazon, the company’s niche destination. With most trips starting around $3,000, it’s no surprise FishQuest clients are generally well heeled. Many are aging baby boomers, who, having acquired homes, cars, boats and other material assets, are now spending money on quality travel experiences.
Customers include a host of celebrities, professional athletes and corporate leaders. But most are just regular guys and gals who are just hooked on fishing.
The company has developed a series of trips designed specifically for couples. In October, FishQuest is traveling to southern Africa on a 14-day fishing and game-viewing safari. Its glossy “Lions Roar, Tigerfish Soar” brochure depicts a highend trip with upscale accommodations and plenty of activities for anglers and non-anglers alike.
As a booking agent, FishQuest neither owns nor operates the lodges and fishing charters it represents. This arrangement allows it to better serve its customers by being able to shift programs to new destinations and better operations. The focus on front-end service pays off in the form of repeat bookings and word-of-mouth referrals.
Commuting to work in Thailand.
SGR handles trademark and related work for FishQuest, which came to SGR’s Kate Rowe (an avid fly fisherman) for help when other companies tried to trade on FishQuest’s good name and Web exposure. In Hiawassee, Swanson’s office routine includes staying in touch with tour operators, developing marketing projects, and consulting with clients about how to select and prepare for upcoming trips. It’s here that his first-hand overseas experience pays off.
Swanson spends up to 15 weeks a year monitoring current fishing destinations — and scouting new ones. While not the largest fishing tour operator, FishQuest has the most extensive destination portfolio. The company has strategic partnerships with top-tier lodges and other fishing operations spread across six continents. FishQuest leans toward exotic destinations that offer a flavor of adventure. Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, Congo and Thailand are just a sampling of the company’s wilder adventures.
Swanson’s own passion for travel has led him to 52 countries. While many customers travel to fish, Swanson admittedly fishes to travel. Over the past decade he’s packed a rod to all seven continents. (He admits to getting “skunked” during a short trip to Antarctica.)
He’s particularly intrigued by the unique cultures along the way, such as Yanomami Indians in Venezuela or Long- Neck tribeswomen in Thailand. In addition to his native English, Swanson speaks fluent Spanish, passable Portuguese and is learning Thai.
Swanson cautions that, like many businesses, there’s a less-glamorous side of the fishing-travel coin. “Airline strikes, political strife and unpredictable weather account for many of the gray hairs on my head,” he notes. And no one was waiting in line for his job the day after 9/11, when most travel business came to a screeching halt.
Swanson’s supportive wife, Lynn, is a high-school Spanish teacher. She occasionally travels with him, along with their sons Eric, 23, and James, 18.
How does one wind up peddling fishing trips? Swanson’s career path has meandered like a winding river. He grew up in Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes, where he fished often at his grandfather’s cabin. The childhood pastime went on hiatus as he pursued a journalism path to South America in 1981, which eventually landed him an executive post at the Venezuelan- American Chamber of Commerce in Caracas.
Five years later he set off on his own to found Lost World Adventures, an ecotourism and special-interest travel firm devoted to South America. An Amazon trip rekindled his passion for fishing, and he parlayed his excitement into a separate angling division, which later served as the spin-off springboard for FishQuest in 1996.
Co-founder and strategic partner Gary Schumacher brought to the table experience from a career transforming World Travel Partners into one of America’s largest corporate travel agencies. He also developed TerraQuest, a groundbreaking Internet project, which linked home-based “virtual adventurers” with live expeditions around the globe via the Web. A resident of Jacksonville, Fla., Schumacher is an avid fly and light-tackle angler. He is a longstanding member of International Game Fish Association and The Billfish Foundation.
The new company’s mission is to provide a “one-stop shop” of quality sportfishing adventures around the world, developing lifelong relationships with its clients while respecting the people and places they visit.
Gary maintains that the fishing tour business is essentially about relationships: family bonding, camaraderie among pals, cementing business ties and cross-cultural exchange. Indeed, after a week in the wilderness, FishQuest staff and clients often wind up becoming close friends.
“We are not just selling trips, we’re creating memories,” says Schumacher. “The return on investment in those is greater than any stock, CD or real estate portfolio.”
Today, the FishQuest team combines over 100 years of professional angling travel experience, and a worldwide network of carefully selected lodges, guides and deepwater fleets.
Cindy Henry is operations manager, handling reservations, travel logistics and other administrative functions. She joined the team in 2004, relocating from Atlanta, where she was an accounting manager in the bottled water industry for 16 years. International Sales Director Judith Weible was born in England and spent nine years traveling throughout the world working on private yachts. Longtime Florida fishing guide Alan Zaremba leads many of FishQuest’s Amazon trips.
Since first opening shop in 1986, Swanson has seen major technological improvements with the advent of cell phones and the Internet. It doesn’t seem that long ago that he was hauling fax machines down to South America just to have reliable communications with his local contacts. These days, staffers will e-mail clients and outfitters in a dozen different countries all before lunch. The company’s main Web site, FishQuest.com, and sister sites (such as peacock-bass.com and canada-pike.com) work 24-7 to promote its freshwater and saltwater trips around the world.
FishQuest has hosted a number of prime-time televised fishing shows, most recently Trevor Gowdy’s “Quest for the One” program on the Versus sports network. Last July, Swanson led a National Geographic TV crew into Brazil’s jungles to shoot a show called “Monster Fish of the Amazon.”
Several years ago, the company launched a merchandise division, QuesTackle, which outfits anglers with equipment, lures, clothing and other merchandise. While providing valueadded service to FishQuest’s own travel clients, the company has also found the online tackle shop to be great for prospecting new travel customers.
While many customers travel to fish, Swanson admittedly fishes to travel. Over the past decade he’s packed a rod to all seven continents.
FishQuest also has devoted energies and experience to several environmental and community projects. It was a consultant to the Georgia Aquarium on travel logistics for collecting exotic fish from Asia and South America. Its Mission Fishin’ project provides educational, medical and other needs to remote Amazon Indian villages.
A Mission Fishin’ dentist examines a patient in the Amazon.
More recently, FishQuest has teamed up with the National Geographic Society to help conserve the world’s largest freshwater fish species. The Megafish Project favors catch-and-release sportfishing as a means of reducing commercial fishing pressure on these unique creatures, while helping local economies.
Swanson’s personal “megafish” highlights include landing an 80-pound Goliath tigerfish in the Congo and a 104-pound redtail catfish in Suriname. Last December in Venezuela, he landed a world-record peacock bass.
At 51, Swanson is just starting to look at the concept of retirement — and is scratching his head. He feels he’s already been living the golden years for the past two decades. But when he’s finally ready to escape day-to-day office chores, he hopes to pass the rod to a younger protégé, while organizing his extensive photo archives and returning to his journalistic roots to write a few books.
Don’t expect his passport to get dusty though — he’s still got a few special places left on his worldwide “bucket list.”
FishQuest!
Quest! Global Angling Adventures, LLC
www.fishquest.com, (888) 891-3474
