Rose Bowl Frustrates Pullman Travel Agents WSU Recruits Illinois Agency To Handle Pasadena Packages

For Dodds Athletic Tours of Champaign, Ill., Washington State University’s trip to the Rose Bowl is a sweet deal.

At WSU’s request, Dodds moved employees into the offices of Bohler Gym to handle the rush to Pasadena. The phone has been ringing off the hook with customers just dying to part with their credit card numbers.

For local travel agents, it’s not so pretty.

They have to scramble for tickets and see only a fraction of the multi-million dollar business sent Dodds’ way.

To Maryann Harlow, president of Wheatland Travel and Cruise Center, the athletic department’s arrangement with Dodds is another example of the university unfairly competing with local businesses.

“I don’t think the university would offer me free office space for any purpose,” she said. “That’s not right. There’s just so many different ways that it’s a bad business practice for Washington State University as a state agency.”

School officials say they went with Dodds because it has extensive experience in dealing with the thousands of people who must be moved from the Pacific Northwest to Pasadena around New Year’s Day.

“I don’t think there’s any independent (travel agent) that’s been able to demonstrate those capabilities,” said Rick Dickson, WSU athletic director.

“It’s just too massive to be handled by a local agency,” said Sallie Giffen, vice president for business affairs.

Dodds is hoping to sell 3,000 to 5,000 tour packages to WSU fans at prices that range from $1,081 for children to $1,701 for a single adult. That includes airfare, four nights’ lodging and a game ticket, which will be provided by WSU and only to Cougar Club members, season ticket holders, President’s Associates or students with sports passes.

Under an agreement inked Nov. 9, for every 50 packages Dodds sells, the athletic department will get one free.

The company is in its 34th year of providing tours to the Rose Bowl and other bowls, making it an obvious choice to handle the arrangements, said Ken Bruce, executive vice president.

“We’ve been there, we’ve done that before,” he said. “Your average travel agent just couldn’t possibly take this on. They may think they can, but it takes millions of dollars to buy 20 aircraft. They just don’t have the wherewithal.”

The university should still have put the tour service out to bid, said Harlow.

Barring that, the school should have at least picked a registered firm, she said, noting that Dodds is not a “registered seller of travel” in the state.

Bruce said the firm didn’t know it needed to register and is now forwarding an application.

By denying local agents the chance to pitch tour proposals, said Harlow, the university is in effect competing with them, despite state regulations barring the practice.

“We as business people cannot compete with them. They have free advertising at taxpayer expense,” she said, referring to the widely circulated 1-800-GO-COUGS telephone number.

Shirley Schultheis, owner of Travel Studio, said she doesn’t mind that Dodds got the university’s tour contract, but she would have liked it if the school had provided tickets for local agents’ packages.

That would have spared customers from having to choose between buying her tickets, which are on the 10-yard line, or taking a chance on getting better tickets through the university. Once callers get through to place a telephone order - no small feat - they have a three-day wait to hear how many tickets they will receive.

“They don’t know whether to take our tickets or wait and try to get one of their own,” she said. “They’re so frustrated. Everybody I talk to all over, they’re just so frustrated.”

Schultheis recalled that her agency wasn’t even allowed to post fliers in the Cougar Depot in downtown Pullman for trips to the 1988 Aloha Bowl.

“We don’t have that kind of cooperation here,” she said. “And what’s really sad, I think from the whole community, is everybody is so excited.

“This is a great thing. We’re finally going to the Rose Bowl. But we’re not making it a fun thing because people are frustrated. They don’t know how to get their tickets.”

, DataTimes