Ballarat's Alan Valpied, owner of italktravel, celebrates 50 years in the travel industry

Alan Valpied is the proud business owner of italktravel on Sturt Street, which has had different names over the years including Ballarat Travel and Cruise and Harvey World Travel.

Back when it was Harvey World Travel, Mr Valpied held the title for longest franchise owner.

When he finished high school he "didn't really like studying and instead chose to get into the workforce".

He landed a job as an accounting clerk with Ansett.

"I just wanted to go to the big smoke and try my luck and get that experience," Mr Valpied said.

He would often help with ticket sales when they were understaffed.

"I could not speak to the sales consultant because he was busy with a queue of people," he said.

"Because I was comfortable doing the cash side of things then I just had to learn the selling side of things.

"So that gave me a good start."

After two years in Melbourne and one in Sydney he returned home to Ballarat to look after his father.

"A travel agency here in Ballarat had a job which I was successful in."

Despite being only 21, he had taken advantage of Ansett's staff rebated tickets.

"That was one of the reasons why I was given a job in an actual travel agency because I had some practical travel experience," Mr Valpied said.

"The rest is history, you could say."

If he had to pick a favorite place to travel, Kenya and Japan would be the top of the list - the excitement of an animal safari and the polite nature of the Japanese people stand out.

Undoubtedly it has been a challenging three years in the travel industry, but before that there had been interruption after interruption - terrorists attacks, bird flu and the collapse of Ansett.

"All of these keep getting thrown at us; once we were getting back on our feet again and then another disaster would come along," he said.

In order to stay afloat and keep staff employed, Mr Valpied stopped paying his own wages for a while.

"One of the other reasons I have been able to continue is because I have had fantastic staff all the way through," he said.

"The longevity of our staff and the knowledge they have built up is just amazing.

"This pandemic in particular has been hard; there were once nine street-front travel agents in Ballarat - there are now five," he said.

"So I'm fortunate to say I am one of the survivors.

"But that is only because of my accounting knowledge - I have been able to very carefully keep watching the books and make adjustments."

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As more people choose to book travel online, agents have changed the way they operate.

"Airlines have dropped our commission down almost to zero, so we now have to treat ourselves like a solicitor or accountant where you pay a fee for their time," Mr Valpied said.

"If more people are doing that, more travel agents will stop operating. How many more empty shops do we want?"

Despite the move online, he said he wanted to see some store-front businesses open.

"With the pandemic people have learnt the value of travel agents, with online bookings they have really struggled to try and talk to a person," Mr Valpied said.

"I have spent time out of Ballarat and when I came back I looked over Ballarat, drove around the lake, and thought this really is a beautiful place and for all my teenage years I had taken that for granted."

Despite the challenges over the past 50 years, Mr Valpied said he was not done with the travel world yet.

"(I have) no plans to retire at the moment. I intend to still go whilst I can still remember passwords and logins to things," he said.

"This is my hobby, this has been not just my work but my hobby for all my life, and why not continue something you enjoy?"

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