The Ledger
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Rick Steves drove paid tour bookings by giving away DIY tour handbooks
“I put everything I knew about doing the tour in the handbook for the tour into intending to give people the information necessary so they could do the Rick Steves tour without Rick Steves. They could buy the book for five bucks and do it on their own. And some…”
Rick Steves: Subsidizing gap-year travel for young Americans is worth the cost
“If the world was smart, they would establish a fund and give every American kid a little
Gap your trip, and it seems extravagant, but it'd be a small price to pay to get Americans out of their home and into the rest of the world and realize this world's a bea…”
Rick Steves won by speaking only English and not being a scholar
“I think that's part of my how I was successful. Part of my appeal is I'm not a scholar. You know, I mispronounce the words. I don't know how to, I don't say Paris, you know. I say Paris. I speak only English.”
Rick Steves: Enter the travel business via minibus tours in niche geographies
“When people want to get into the travel business and make some money, I say, you know, I think the best thing is just to have a forte. Just, you know, you are you know, you are Mr. Scandinavia, or you are Mr. Baja, or Miss Baja, California. And just do that sp…”
Rick Steves: Giving away complete tour itineraries in books boosted tour sales
“And some people said, oh, you're giving away all your secrets. No, it was a great thing because it turned people onto the tours, and it opened up my teaching to people that wouldn't take the tours anyway.”
Rick Steves: Become indispensable by being a cash cow for your partners
“You know, one thing I've had as a business sort of value is be other people's cash cow. Everybody is struggling. Everybody is desperate to be viable from a business point of view, and if all you are is your own cash cow, nobody's going to want to talk to you, …”
Rick Steves' travel show generated nearly 20% of all PBS pledge revenue
“To this day, I mean, I just was talking to the people at Public Television a week or two ago, and they said nearly 20% of all the money that they raised in Pledge this last quarter was from my show, for the whole system.”
Steves: Charging public TV for travel shows would destroy viewership
“I think the worst thing I could do is charge for the TV show because then nobody would watch it. People, people, people couldn't afford to run it. I mean, public television doesn't have much money.”
Rick Steves shifted focus from remote destinations to accessible authentic spots
“I used to genuinely look for places off the beaten path. But I've been sort of, I've morphed into finding unique, authentic places that are accessible to the beaten path.”
Rick Steves: High-value content outlasts generational shifts in media formats
“I think if content is fundamentally helpful, and if it's well designed, and if it's affordable, the format Can be devised after the fact to fit the consuming habits of this generation or that generation.”
Pre-COVID, 25 of the top 30 US European guidebooks were Rick Steves
“Before COVID hit, my publisher was so excited. He showed me the sales chart, and 25 of the top 30 guidebooks published in the United States for Europe had Rick Steves on the cover.”
Steves: Rick Steves' Europe is viable without Rick Steves
“I've, you know, I've wanted to get to the point where the business could survive without me, and I think we're at the point now, and I'm really happy about that, that we've got a team where the company is viable without me.”
Steves: Society should fund a gap year abroad for every American child
“If the world was smart, they would establish a fund and give every American kid a little gap year trip, and it seems extravagant, but it'd be a small price to pay. To get Americans out of their home and into the rest of the world and realize this world's a bea…”
Rick Steves: The best travel business entry is operating specialized minibus tours
“When people want to get into the travel business and make some money, I say, you know, I think the best thing is just to have a forte. Just, you know, you are you know, you are Mr. Scandinavia, or you are Mr. Baja, or Miss Baja, California, and just do that sp…”
Rick Steves: Becoming partners' cash cow makes your business indispensable
“You know, one thing I've had as a business sort of value is be other people's cash cow. Everybody is struggling. Everybody is desperate to be viable from a business point of view, and if all you are is your own cash cow, nobody's gonna want to talk to you, but…”
Rick Steves: Founders cannot make up for missed parenting once kids grow up
“Pretty practical about the reality that you can't do it all, and those years are fleeting years, and you can't really make it up, make up for it when your kids are in their thirties, when you finally slow down and you realize that cat's in the cradle kind of b…”
Steves: Focus shifted from remote locations to authentic spots near main routes
“I used to genuinely look for places off the beaten path, but I've been sort of, I've morphed into finding unique, authentic places that are accessible to the beaten path. That's what people want.”
Rick Steves' Europe peaked at $100M in revenue with just 100 employees
“When we peaked in 2019, I think we were, our gross revenue was a hundred million dollars with a hundred employees.”
Rick Steves bought and donated a 25-unit apartment complex to the YWCA
“Eventually I just gave that building to the YWCA, and now I go to sleep knowing that my hard work has resulted in the YWCA owning, you know, a 25 unit apartment complex that is housing 25 single moms in this case people who have had problems with hard drug add…”
Steves: I drop friends' hotels from guidebooks if their quality drops
“If things go south, that hotel, even if it's run by friends of mine, is out of the book, and it breaks my heart, but I have had to drop hotels run by friends of mine, because it's no longer what it used to be when it earned a spot in the book.”
Rick Steves held 25 of the top 30 US Europe guidebook spots
“Before COVID hit, my publisher was so excited. He showed me the sales chart, and 25 of the top 30 guidebooks published in the United States for Europe had Rick Steves on the cover.”
Steves: Arthur Frommer publicly anointed him as the next travel guide giant
“He had me fly all the way to New York and be on his radio show, and. Or it was a TV show, I think, maybe, and he's, he put his, you know, he kind of effectively put his arm around me, and he said, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to meet the next Temple Fiel…”
Steves: Small World initially paid me only in guidebook promotional exposure
“The only pay I was getting was the exposure, I suppose, to the public, and the chance to say, and he writes a guidebook, so at the end of the show, he writes a cool book, and if you like the show, you like the book, you buy that, and then Small World would mak…”
Steves: Rick Steves' Europe operates 1,200 tours for 30,000 people annually
“In a normal year, we take 30,000 people and 1200 tours.”
Rick Steves has never paid for a flight above economy class
“I've never paid for anything other than economy on an airplane ticket if I get bumped.”
Steves drops friends' hotels from guidebooks if quality declines
“If things go south, that hotel, even if it's run by friends of mine, is out of the book, and it breaks my heart, but I have had to drop hotels run by friends of mine, because it's no longer what it used to be when it earned a spot in the book.”
Rick Steves: Non-academic persona drove travel guide success
“I think that's part of my how I was successful. Part of my appeal is I'm not a scholar.”
Steves: Bus tours funded the idealism of Rick Steves' Europe
“From 80 on, after I had the guidebook, the tour, the bus tours were funding the idealism of the business”
Steves: First TV series paid zero direct salary, only guidebook promotion
“The only pay I was getting was the exposure, I suppose, to the public, and the chance to say, and he writes a guidebook. So at the end of the show, he writes a cool book, and if you like the show, you like the book, you buy that, and then Small World would mak…”
Rick Steves' Europe drove nearly 20% of all PBS pledge revenue
“I was spending 20 days a year, 20 days on the road doing pledge, and to this day, I mean, I just was talking to the people at public television a week or two ago, and they said nearly 20% of all the money that they raised in pledge this last quarter was from m…”
Rick Steves: Rick Steves' Europe operates 1,200 tours for 30,000 people annually
“In a normal year, we take 30,000 people and 1200 tours.”
Steves: I have never paid for anything other than economy airline tickets
“I've never paid for anything other than economy on an airplane ticket if I get bumped.”
Steves: Rick Steves' Europe grew without formal strategy or planned executive roles
“No strategy at all. I never really wanted to look in the book and say, oh, now you have a COO. Now you have a CFO. I don't even know what that stuff is until it becomes apparent, oh, we need a guy to do this, and then they go, yeah, that's called a CFO. We're …”
Rick Steves: First guidebook split travel skills from 20 destination discoveries
“In the beginning, the book was two halves. It was like two books bound together. The first half was all the skills. Packing, hotels, eating, transportation, communication, you name it. And then the last half were individual chapters on my 20 favorite discoveri…”
Steves printed the first edition of Europe Through the Back Door for a couple thousand dollars
“So it was a lovingly put together pile of a 180 pages, and I took it up to the publisher with, And I dug up all my money, and it would cost a couple thousand dollars, and I got a couple thousand books.”
Steves: Rick Steves' Europe's best-selling tours run 10 to 12 days
“It's funny, because now, you know, 40 years later, it's evolved where that's way too long for the American market, and the longest tour is 20 days, and our best-selling tours are 10 or 12 days.”
Steves: European bus tours funded guidebook publishing from 1980 onward
“But from 80 on, after I had the guidebook, the tour, the bus tours were funding the idealism of the business.”
Steves: Producing a half-hour travel episode took six days on location
“The TV show, it takes six days to produce a half-hour TV show, and you learn nothing during that. I mean, I always thought, oh, I could learn while I'm there. No, it's just so all-consuming. You're just there waiting for the jackhammer to stop, trying to remem…”
Steves: European work time splits equally across tours, books, and TV
“You see, my time in Europe is divided. It's basically a third involved with the tour program, a third involved in researching the books, and a third involved in producing the TV shows.”
Rick Steves made early profits flipping European coins in Seattle
“Coins sold in Seattle in the sixties. Foreign coins for Three cents a piece, you know, in the coin markets, if it was a German coin or a Norwegian coin. So I could buy 52 Groschen coins for a nickel and bring them home and sell them for three cents each.”
Rick Steves has returned to Europe annually since high school
“I vowed right then in the Copenhagen train station that I would go back to Europe every year after I graduated from high school, and I have.”
Steves: Traveled across Europe in 1973 on roughly three dollars daily
“Back then, you could go to Europe really cheap. You could fly to Europe for a few hundred dollars. You could get a year rail pass, a student year rail pass for, I think it was 250 dollars, and we lived on, on three or four, I mean, there was no five dollars a …”
Rick Steves' first travel class surprisingly drew 100 parents, not students
“I thought I'd get 20 kids from the dorm signing up. I had a hundred of their parents signing up, and I just remember, holy cow, I've struck something here, there's, these are not the students, these are the parents”
Rick Steves wrote 'Europe Through the Back Door' by transcribing his lectures
“I just sat down and gave my lecture to the paper, and there it was, the first edition of Europe Through the Back Door.”
Steves: First edition of Europe guidebook lacked an ISBN
“It was self-published. I didn't know what an ISBN was, so it didn't have an ISBN, which was stupid.”