Keeping Pace with Travel Trends

As luggage market leaders redefine their lines, they are luring consumers with new colors and styles, and product features that promise a more appealing packing/traveling experience.

The luggage industry is facing off to a price competitive, slow-growth retail market with new products that cater to the needs of today's traveler.

Bobbin asked some of the industry's leading luggage manufacturers to describe their latest product directions, and share their views of the state of the market, and their strategies for growth.

Hartmann Updates Its Look

One of a handful of luggage makers that still produces largely in the United States, 121-year-old Hartmann Inc. long has been known for its premium luggage, business cases, computer cases, accessories and personal leather goods items. In recent years, the Lebanon, TN-based firm, which offers primarily soft-sided goods, has had to refocus its business to cope with changing market conditions.

As Maria Reicin, director of marketing, explains: "Travel used to be extremely special. With airline deregulation, that changed. It became highly competitive. People were doing all sorts of different concepts and ideas. And the cachet of travel took a turn downward. We suffered from competition and not keeping our focus."

But Hartmann has regained its bearings, Reicin emphasizes, saying: "The great thing about Hartmann ... [is that] we have a diversity of fabrics and textures and styles among the collections. You can go from ballistic nylon, which is a commodity that everyone needs to have, to our heritage lines of tweed and belting leather."

In keeping with the changing travel scene, Hartmann's new "Crossroads" line targets the casual, weekend getaway market. The collection offers giant backpacks and duffel-type bags rather than structured cases. Most of the goods are made of a light material, and are complemented by leather pieces.

Hartmann also has released the new H Studio brand for the upper moderate segment, with distribution via department and specialty stores. The first H Studio line, called the "Primary Collection," is made of a micro-ballistic nylon weave that gives the products a slick look, Reicin says. Linings in many of the pieces are in primary colors, offering consumers a splash of color when they delve into the bags. "Color is somewhat missing in [the U.S. luggage market], and we're trying to capitalize on it with some fresh spirit and attitude," she notes.

Hartmann's goal is to offer style and function, Reicin emphasizes, so that consumers will view its lines not just as utilitarian products but also as something to enjoy as they would a new briefcase or handbag.

Boyt Gets in Sync with Market

Another long-time, high-end luggage industry icon is Iowa Falls, IA-based Boyt, a maker of luggage and business and computer cases, plus the Gevive line of women's travel and accessory bags.

The firm, which like Hartmann produces most of its goods in the United States, is on the road back to fiscal health after emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in spring 1997.

It was "pure and simple mismanagement," not foreign competition, that plunged the firm into bankruptcy in the fall of 1996, general manager Rick Coffman forthrightly told Bobbin. But the company has come out of the experience with a keener focus on product development, and is determined to remain competitive as a U.S. producer.

"We hope we can survive as a domestic producer," Coffman says. "I don't know if we can. But we can try. ... If we do decide to move some products offshore, we'll [probably] still make the majority of goods here. Now, we don't have to order by the container load, and if someone calls in an order for 20 pieces, we can make 20."

In fact, Boyt is striving to differentiate itself from other luggage firms that import most of their goods. "We have to set ourselves apart from the crowd because the crowd is making stuff in China at a lower price than we can," Coffman states. "If we're going to have an American-made product, it has to be very good and unique. A glider is a glider, and an upright is an upright. But our Iowa-made uprights, we think, have little touches [such as microfiber linings] that make them better."

The firm's emphasis on product design also shows in its latest expandable glider line, which features innovative packing options, including a special suiter compartment.

Boyt's aim is to quickly get more in sync with market demand, and the firm is making progress toward this goal, Coffman relates. The firm's Boyt line, for instance, is in step with consumer demand for ballistic and Cordura nylon. On the other hand, the Gevive collection still is offered in 16 tapestries -- more choices than the market and Boyt can support. "Nobody has 16 tapestries," notes Coffman. "We're going to cut that in half soon.

Travelpro's Focus: 'Make the Flying Public Happier'

If any one company is responsible for the popularity and growth of carryon, soft-sided wheeled bags, it is 60-year-old, Boca Raton, FL-based Travelpro. The concept, created by former airline pilot Robert Plath 10 years ago, dramatically changed the way people travel.

As a result of Plath's invention, Travelpro's bags, which are made in Asia and sold in department and specialty stores, have become "almost a standard" among flight crews, with an estimated 350,000 flight crew members traveling daily with the firm's luggage, says Travelpro vice president of marketing Marcy Schackne.

Moreover, the company's trademarked "Fit to Fly" luggage is guaranteed to meet different airlines' size requirements for carry-on baggage, provided the bags are packed properly by the consumer, Schackne notes. (See "Carrying On About CarryOns," Bobbin, December 1999, for more on the carry-on size issue.)

Looking at important but not obvious changes that are being made in the company's products, Schackne goes just so far by revealing that Travelpro has applied for construction patents that "will make the flying public happier." She asks rhetorically, "Will anybody notice [the product changes] from the outside? Probably not. But will the frequent traveler breathe a sigh of relief? Yes."

New product features that captivate the consumer are more important than ever for Travelpro, especially given the diminishing retail floor space dedicated to luggage. As Schackne explains: "The specialty luggage store isn't a large square foot property, and neither are department stores. For instance, the JCPenney luggage department, on a standard floor plan, is squeezed between bridal gifts and curtains. It's shoved in a corner."

Given this competitive environment, Travelpro is dedicated to helping its retail customers drive up luggage sales. In that regard, the company has opted to provide links to its retailers' Web sites, rather than selling goods directly to consumers via the Web. "We respect the relationships we have with our retailers," Schackne declares. "We want to be their business partners, not their competitors."

While the marketing executive asserts that the luggage industry isn't large enough for manufacturers to compete with stores, she also emphasizes that, in general terms: "There's a lot of opportunity out there."

Jules A bend is a Bobbin contributing editor and editor in chief of Clarion Inc., a Howell, NJ-based international news gathering organization.

WILLOWBEE & KENT

Takes Travel Retail to Experiential Level

Craig W. Poteet is a new breed of retailer and is changing the perception of what a luggage store should be with an extraordinary enterprise Willowbee & Kent Travel Co

Just ask some of the luggage vendors who supply the 29-year-old entrepreneur's store, which was founded less than two years ago in Boston, MA, and carries many of the best luggage brands, including Hartmann, Tumi, Ghurka, Samsonite and Kipling. Maria Reicin; director of marketing for Hartmann, say: "Poteet is a partner that we truly enjoy working with. His is a wonderful store. He has created an environment in store and see what's new."

Why the raves? Essentially, Poteet, a former airline consultant with a master's of business ad ministration degree in aviation and travel management, has created a one-stop travel shop that sells primarily luggage, but also offers a range of travel clothing, books maps videos, binoculars and electronic travel gadgets.

That's not to mention the stores selection of artifacts from around the world, from African masks to Chinese herbal teas (and the specially fired clay pots to brew them in). The store also offers a full-service travel agency, for helping customers book everything from airline tickets and dinner reservations to golf tee times and spa treatments.

But willowbee & Kent is more than that The 5,400-square-foot, two-level contemporary store, located in the middle of Boston's Back Bay, is a place in which to dream.

Designed by Columbus, OH-based Retail Design Group (known for its work with Eddie Bauer, The Limited Group and Victoria's Secret), Willowbee & Kent is "experiential," to use the term coined by futurists Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, goods as props and services as the stage to create experiences that engage customers in an inherently personal way.

In Poteet's words, his store is "a comfortable, inviting space where people come in to do things. Customers can read, wander and dream about the most exotic trips imaginable."

Range to cruising the Amazon by riverboat. There also is an interactive kiosk that offers multimedia information on travel locales, complete with enhanced lighting to evoke a cool Scandinavian setting or cast a warm Caribbean glow to the space," Poteet explains

One of the store's more unusual features is a 14-foot, freestanding stone slab, called the "Travel Gateway." Monitors on both sides of the slab feature videos about diverse travel destinations and activities, from rock climbing in Canada's Premier

Interestingly travel apparel -- particularly wrinkle resistant garments that are lightweight and dry quickly -- has been a growth category for the store, which stocks the Ex Officio brand of men's and women's clothing. Apparel occupies about 20 percent of the store's floor space, and is becoming a much larger component in the mix, Poteet says.

We are in what we like to think of as the fastest growing segment of the apparel industry: travel clothing," he observes. "When we started, apparel was 4 percent of total sales. Less than two years later, it's up to about 16 percent, with average retail prices being $50 to $60 for shirts, skirts, pants and vests."

As for the future, Poteet says he hopes to open a second unit in the Boston area within a year, and to expand into other cities in the future.

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