In Conversation With Ruth Rittmeister
An industry icon, iconoclast, and my first boss and mentor.
by Wendy Burk
Wendy Burk, captured here laughing at Ruth’s sharp sense of humor on Ruth’s first ever Zoom video conference, July 29, 2020.
At 96, Ruth Rittmeister continues to work everyday doing what she loves: sharing her love and experience with her adoring clients. Capture here in her first ever Zoom video conference with Wendy Burk, July 29,2020.
I joined the agency ITS (International Travel Service), a division of Trade wind Tours, in 1977. Located on Kuhio Avenue in Waikiki, this was the outbound division, mainly focussed on corporate travel and high end leisure travel. Ruth Rittmeister was the president.
This was my very first job in travel. In addition to my inexperience, I was also the youngest employee. She didn’t have to, but Ruth Rittmeister took me under her wing and by doing so, changed the course of my life forever.
Even then, Ruth Rittmeister was an icon, and iconoclast. She used a manual typewriter, when everyone else has an electric typewriter. She famously held two Rolodexes; one for vendors and one for clients. Everything for Ruth was about the connections. She would call me her diamond in the rough.
Ruth happened to live in the same building as my parents, who spent half the year in Hawaii. We were friendly outside of work, and she truly was an amazing mentor. Recently, I had the opportunity to reconnect with Ruth via Zoom. As remarkable as her life has been, this was somehow Ruth’s very first Zoom call! Even today, at age 96, Ruth continues to accomplish new things and still runs and manages her travel business from her home-base in Hawaii. What follows is a transcript of our conversation. What you may not see here is the joy, the infectious smile, and the genuine care for people and places that Ruth continues to nurture and share via her love for travel. But hopefully, some of that comes through.
Ruth Rittmeister: Here you are! You haven’t changed since I last saw you!
Wendy Burk: I’ll take my mask off and we can do this without a mask. Tell me - what outfit are you wearing today. Is it a Carol & Mary outfit?
RR: You’re about 40 years behind! They haven’t existed for a while, but I still miss them.
WB. Exactly! I still have my mother’s fur coat from there. How are you, my darling?
RR: I am fine. I haven’t been bored with all of this happening, and I don’t know when I have time to work full time and do what I do. Because time is flying even though it seems like I don’t work. Well, I make refunds, you know?
WB. You’re making refunds, yes. That means that you did have bookings? Because we were all looking at a good year for 2020.
RR: Well, I had some wonderful safaris, but I rolled them over. Doesn’t help me now though. I was telling my assistant here that you worked with me when you were a baby, right?
WB. Yes! Yes, absolutely! I didn’t know anything about travel other than I loved to travel. Other than I thought it would be a pretty fun idea getting into the travel business, being an intern in your office. That was 1977. I interned in your office, starting working with you all when you were ITS, a division of Tradewind Tours.
RR: You came from Tradewind?
WB. No. I wasn’t…I came from college. I was at the university and my first job was with you.
RR: You were about 17 or something?
WB. 18 or 19, yes.
RR: Very undisciplined! But I also knew that you were born to be a travel agent.
WB. (laughing) I’m not disciplined now either.
Wendy Burk (l) with Ruth Rittmeister (c) and Linda Young (r), circa 1982 attending a “Great Gatsby” themed event.
RR: Imagine how big you have become. It’s wonderful.
WB. Well, the reason why I wanted to do this, and the idea that came to me is that I know you think I’ve become so big, but the truth is we stand on the shoulders of giants. And you are a giant, and still are a giant to many, Ruth. And we lovely called you the Ruthless Master as opposed to Ruth Rittmeister, because you were ruthless! You were really hard on us. You used to call me a “diamond in the rough” and say, “there’s a lot of work to do with you, you’re very undisciplined!” That hasn’t changed. I’m very spontaneous and I think that there has been a whole world that we’ve built from this together: A joy and a passion for travel. Did I understand this right, is this your first zoom call.
RR: That’s right.
WB. Wow. This is incredible. Well, this is what we’re doing now. So, did you know that we’re celebrating 25 years in business this year?
RR: Really? You started with me knowing nothing about the travel business but you learned so fast. As I’ve said to you before, you were born to be a travel agent. There’s some people who are. And after a while you became probably the best of my employees at the time. You went not only the one mile, you went several extra miles. I remember you getting up at 4 o’clock in the morning for clients. Time meant nothing to you. You really went beyond the call of duty. I hated it when you had to leave for La Jolla where you are now. Yeah, I really believe that some people are born to be travel agents. I was not at all. I worked for the Norwegian government as you know, and I had studied physics and chemistry. I was in atomic energy and I came to America and somebody asked me to help. I was only to be here in America for a few months, so I was thinking. So I helped him out, though I knew nothing about travel. I had only known that I travelled since I was 2 months old. But I realized that that was my calling. And there are very few people that have that. I really mean that.
WB. So what is it that a travel agent does that they are born with. What is that intuitive sense?
“..go the extra mile but more important is intuition. To know your client, to know exactly what they want. You know instinctively what they want. You may ask what type of hotel they would use if they were in San Diego, but you basically know what you should sell them and what you should never sell them, even if they ask for it.”
RR: Number one to go the extra mile but more important is intuition. To know your client, to know exactly what they want. You know instinctively what they want. You may ask what type of hotel they would use if they were in San Diego, but you basically know what you should sell them and what you should never sell them, even if they ask for it. It’s intuition. Knowledge helps! And back in the old days we travelled all over the world and we went to see all of the hotels and manor houses and castles. Today it’s a little more difficult. I would not like to start a business today, no. We had the best of times. In fact we had a very interesting three hour program on public television all about the start and end of Pan American. And that brought back memories, how great things were at the time. And you probably remember that.
WB. Yes, Pan Am flight number one, around the world. Tell me about your time at the Halekulani hotel.
RR: Well, I lived at the Halekulani Hotel in splendor for 25 years. 25 Years! But it also made me useless since then. I still cannot cook. I can hardly put a lightbulb in my lamp!
WB. I really value the times we’ve had together, and certainly appreciate everything you’ve done for us in the industry, which to me really starts with your attention to detail. Can you talk about why you were so great at what you did and how you held on to your customer base?
RR: Like you, you just go that extra mile. Next time you come I’ll show you the book that my Wendy did for me for my 90th birthday when you were here at Halekulani. Do you remember?
WB. Yes!
RR: A collection of things that my clients wrote. And they would never let me retire, thank goodness. Even, you know, we had the hurricane, they called me from Louisiana, from North Carolina, Washington…you still have clients in Hawaii don’t you?
WB. No, I don’t. I think you took them all from me!
RR: You were going to open an office here.
WB. Well, yes. At one point, but I quickly let go of that dream.
RR: Lots of my clients are dying out obviously, or cannot travel anymore but then they refer other people to me. I don’t have a great volume. If we don’t survive, I’m coming to do my business through you. What I still have.
WB. I keep telling you that you should! Do you still have your Rolodex?
RR: Well of course! It’s from 1901, I believe. And it still has a lot of dead people in there! And it still has Pan American in there. (Laughing).
WB. (Laughing) You always had a great sense of humor. Obviously we don’t make a lot of money in this business unless we charge for what we do. So now, given this, what would you do differently? How would you like to start charging people?
RR: You know in Hawaii you can’t. You have so much competition, and they undercut everything. So, we don’t do that. Everyone on the mainland charges. You can’t. We would lose clients, even if they are the best. Well, I would paraphrase that: It’s too late for the client’s I have to suddenly say “I have to charge you.” But if I had new clients, a younger generation and I said “I have to charge you” they would never go for it. So that’s one big minus. You charge right?
WB. Some of our advisors don’t charge. They charge if you cancel. You know what they’ll do is they’ll put a line item on it that says, “this is what my fee is, and only if you cancel I will bill you this.”
RR: That’s a good idea.
WB. That’s what we’re doing now to help people who are saying they don’t want to do it. To charge legacy clients. So we say only if you cancel.
RR: Yes, that’s good.
WB. We’ve been keeping a naughty and a nice list for vendors that have been, you know… in tough times is when true character comes out. And we have found that some cruise lines and hoteliers have been better than others. They’re not necessarily operating with honesty and integrity and open communication, which is key. The conversation and communication with our vendors has been so important. The brilliant part about our business is that we have no inventory. Our inventory is our people. And our people are all trained to do the best thing they can for their clients by listening to what their client’s needs are. Now this I learned from you: to not only have plan A but always have plan B as a backup because you never know if plan A is going to work out. And I do think that you one hundred percent trusted those people in your rolodex that they were going to come through for you. In some cases for us, those people aren’t coming through now. And I think that given this pandemic, there’s going to be a lot of fallout. I don’t believe everyone is going to make it. They just keep pushing it. Cruises keep pushing out.
RR: I agree with you.
Ruth and Wendy at the Halekulani Hotel.
WB. I really want to take it up to that leadership level. The tidbits of your wisdom. You used to take us all into Bob McGregor’s office before 8 o’clock in the morning to make all of our long distance phone calls to New York. Do you remember this? We had the one long-distance call line. What were the things that made you so successful with so many agents and personalities. How did you manage that and teach the discipline and intuition that is who you are?
RR: It wasn’t easy but if you set a good example they can always come to you. They can make mistakes but first figure out yourself. If it’s wrong fine but at least come up with something. But it’s a slow process. I was lucky, we had people most of them already had experience. It wasn’t always the way you wanted it but it wasn’t that you had to start from scratch again. So we were lucky and we had very wonderful people.
WB. Yes! But you did have newbies too. Me being one of them. And I remember that I used to get blamed because people would say I was your favorite.
RR: That’s right.
WB. If you were going to look back in time, what is the one piece of advise you would give for travel advisors moving forward? The one thing that you didn’t do that you wish you could have done that would take it to the next level. What would you have done differently?
RR: I would have probably become a Wendy and grow! But all my staff left me, retired when they could, and I’m the only agent who’s insane enough to still work at my age. But that’s the only thing I could change. But now I’m the tiniest agency. I work hard. I keep in touch with my clients with letters.
WB. Are you still using a typewriter?
RR: No, I’m only just beyond that! I write to my clients, “ok, did you keep up today?” Or to bemoan like this but it’s worth it.
WB. It is wonderful that you are staying in touch with your clients. And you are also a wonderful writer. Are you writing a journal? How are you journaling this time.
RR: So many people ask me to write. You know, I used to have my own television show. I did the shows at the Kahala. I did all the things that I wanted to do. But I’m on my own now. So it’s all in my mind, rather than writing it down. For whom?
WB. You’ve made an impact on so many, and your leadership is about grit. it’s about resilience. It’s about all of the things you’ve gone through. This pandemic has offered all of us an opportunity to learn, to grow. What have you learned during all of this?
RR: I’ve only learned that it’s fate and there is nothing I can do about it. And there’s so much good coming out of the bad. People have been so wonderful. However, if I were younger I’d probably worry more about employees and things lIke that. But my outlook is different. I was born in 1924, so I went through everything. I didn’t go through the great depression because I wasn’t in America, but everything else. I had lots of horrible things, through wars, but I don’t think about this. I’m grateful for all of the good things. I feel sorry for what’s happening, it’s terrible. I think our lives will be changed forever. And travel will be changed forever. Do you feel that way?
WB. Yes of course! Everything has changed. But you know, what I really want to say is thank you - a really big thank you. I also wake up every day grateful. I say thank you before I start thinking in the morning. I definitely live in gratitude. I do believe that travel will be different but I think that travel advisors will be more important than they ever were before because people don’t want to be on their own.
RR: I feel the same, and I hope we are right. Because, well, I know for our office quite a few of the younger people would never come to a travel agent anymore. They do everything on the internet. We could probably get so many more clients if they weren’t beholden to the internet. You have to have personal experience - why this hotel or that hotel. First-hand experience, which you never find on the internet.
WB. They can go to Costco and buy their travel there, or they can go to Neiman Marcus and get it wrapped in tissue paper with a genuine thank you.
RR: Yes, that’s it.
WB: Ruth, thank you for taking the time and please know how much I love and adore you. I honor all of your wisdom that you’ve shared that I carry with me every where I go.
RR: Well you are very important to me, and that you’ve found me again after all of this time, it’s very special. And incidentally, I like the color of your hair which is different from what I have now! (Laughing)
WB. I’m sending you hugs and love. And I just want to say how grateful I am to have you in my life and to know that I come from somewhere so wonderful.
RR: You have made my day. It’s been so wonderful to get together with you. And you look wonderful, it’s the only thing I hold against you!
WB. We love you Ruthie!
RR: Thank you. It was really fun. All the best!