By Jeff McCready
When Lynn Dudish decided it was time for Carlson Wagonlit Travel/Good News Travels to relocate, staying downtown was a prime consideration.
Since 2002 the downtown travel agency has been located on Gazebo Park. On May 16 the business moved to 419 Lincoln St., known as Lincoln Center.
"Staying downtown - that definitely was a consideration," Lynn said. "I believe in downtown. I can see on the horizon that Johnstown can come back and I want to be a part of that."
Lynn started Good News Travels in March 1989 and it operated for several years above the 1st Summit Bank office on Menoher Boulevard in Westmont. Good News later moved to the former Lighthouse Dairy Store location along Goucher Street in Lower Yoder Township.
The business moved downtown after the purchase of the Holiday Travel Agency that was located on Park Place, later renamed Gazebo Park. Lynn was manager of Holiday Travel from 1977 to 1987. She also worked as a corporate travel manager for several years at AAA before starting her own business.
Good News later became affiliated with Carlson Wagonlit, a travel management company, but Lynn said it has been sold and she probably will not renew her affiliation.
"We're going back to Good News," she said.
Ninety-five percent of Good News' customers were business travelers when it opened. But as its leisure traveler business increased, Good News needed a more accessible location. That resulted in the move to the former dairy store.
"We needed a store-front location," she said.
Today, the business has "a pretty good mixture" of both leisure and business travelers. Now 80 to 85 percent of its customers are leisure travelers.
With the move to Lincoln Street came a greater reliance on computers.
"Some agencies have feared the Internet," she said. "Carlson taught us to embrace it,"
She now has a computer system in her home that allows her to operate just as if she were in the office. That also makes it more convenient in doing business with people in different time zones.
Her home computer is tied to her office one and to that of a sister agency in Minneapolis.
That system is very helpful because a large percentage of her customers are not in Johnstown. They are from areas including Washington, D.C., Connecticut, Denver, Salt Lake City and on the West Coast.
The high price of fuel and the weak American dollar have changed the way people are traveling. There are fewer trips outside the U. S. On the other hand, the weak American dollar has been bringing more tourists into this country.
"People are making their plans and traveling more quickly," she said.
This is a return to what travelers were doing for a while after Sept. 11, 2001. Lynn said that gradually reverted to earlier bookings. Starting this year, travelers started doing again what they did following Sept. 11.
Lynn says the advantage of a small agency is that clients receive that personal touch … kind of like like Cheers where "everybody knows your name."
Lynn and her husband, Andy, have a not-so common hobby. They raise koi (a fish that is a member of the carp family). Their seven koi reside in a 5,000-gallon pond at their home that is enclosed during the winter months.
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