Travel agency keeps on going
Published on -8/30/2010, 8:19 AM
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By KALEY CONNER
The reception area of Edmund and Georgia Moore's office seems to be in a slightly different time zone, despite its downtown Hays location.
Besides a poster-sized global map, the office boasts nine different clocks, tracking the hour in every hemisphere. That's appropriate enough for the Hays couple, who has been sending vacationers all around the world since 1965.
"It's been a situation with lots and lots of changes along the way," Georgia Moore said.
The couple decided to open their own travel agency, Moore Tours International Inc., simply for the love of it. They enjoyed traveling and believed Hays was lacking a local agency.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Time itself has been the driving force behind many changes for the small family business. The greatest transformation, Georgia Moore said, came with the implementation of computers, and later, the World Wide Web.
Despite the emergence of many online travel agencies, she said many customers have remained loyal to the local business.
"We're grateful that they use it for research and come with their questions to us," Moore said. "I know that we lose some business to the Internet, but we all do somehow or another. We don't try to fight it; we try to join it."
The company also has implemented a website, www.mooretourshays.com. The agency offers both independent travel options and organized tours.
And ultimately, the agency still offers amenities not always available online, she said.
"There are a lot of questions that are not answered on the Internet," Moore said. "With all the experience we've had, if we don't have the answer, we certainly have a pretty good source whereby we can come up with the answers for them."
When the couple is not busy planning travel for others, they enjoy booking vacations for themselves. For the Moores, their preferred destination often is to follow the path of history.
They organize an annual outing for the veterans stationed with Edmund Moore during the war, and have traveled abroad, following the footsteps of the squadron many years before.
While Florida, Alaska, New England and Jamaica all remain popular tourist destinations, Georgia Moore said she particularly is captivated by European charms.
"I like the Orient and I like ... the islands," she said. "But I am very partial to European travel. I like to work with it, and I like to travel there."
