Thumbs UP For Joe Issa’s Quadrupling Conquest?

When Joe Issa achieves things he does so in fours, not like most of us who are contented with just once as if numbers don’t mean anything.

Numbers are said to “have certain powers which are expressed both by its symbol to denote its representation and by its connection to universal principles,” and are believed to relate with everything in nature, which makes them “supremely powerful symbolic expressions,” said whats-your-sign.com, at http://www.whats-your-sign.com/spiritual-meaning-of-numbers.html.

If so then, the figure 4 could be Joe Issa’s lucky number, if only because it keeps popping up in so many of his accomplishments since leaving Campion College in 1984, and he may not even realize it let alone believe it.

“I’m not a superstitious person, I believe in the real world and I don’t ascribe significance to what I deem to be mere circumstantial evidence or anecdotal,” says Issa, who is head of Cool Corporation in Ocho Rios and a wizard with numbers.

So what’s the evidence that Issa has a thing for number 4 or vice versa? Well answer this: what year do you think it was when at the age of 29 Issa stood on a stage in Sydney, Australia receiving the coveted award of Young Hotelier of the World? Yes; you guess right – 1994; and that wasn’t the first time he was achieving something in which the figure 4 pops up.

Issa’s encounters with number 4 started a decade earlier in 1984 when he qualified for College of the Holy Cross, one of America’s most prestigious universities in Worcester, Massachusetts and became the 11^th member of the Issa family to study there.

When he graduated 4 years later he made history by passing all 4 parts of the CPA exam in one sitting, the youngest resident Jamaican to do so, a pure stroke of genius, some called it. The celebrated Edward Seaga wrote to his father to congratulate him, and the feat was widely published.

Also, the year 1988 in which Issa graduated Cum Laude and valedictorian, just happens to be divisible by 4. That year he also copped the Massachusetts Society of CPA’s Inc. most outstanding junior student award.

And when Issa won Travel Agents Magazine’s 100 Rising Stars award, he did so 4 years in a row – 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000.

Numbers are said to have been first used about 30000BC by the Palaeolithic peoples in central Europe and France who record numbers on bones. Later in 1AD the Chinese mathematician Liu Hsin first used decimal fractions, according to “A Mathematical Chronology” at http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Chronology /full.html.

Travel agencies should charge for services — Joe Issa

Joe Issa, the executive vice president of the SuperClubs hotel group, has proposed that Jamaican travel agents charge clients for consultations — in much the same way as lawyers and doctors do — in an effort to maximise earnings in a difficult market.

Issa’s suggestion, made at a function Saturday night at which SuperClubs honoured its travel agent partners, came against the backdrop of a rise in outfits that allow travelers to book flights and whole vacations on-line, sometimes after they had gathered information from travel agencies.

“Basically, the world around us is changing and we all need to work together to embrace that change in a way that creates innovative ideas so that this present and everlasting change will not consume us,” Issa told the agents at SuperClubs Grand Lido Braco hotel in Trelawny.

Added Issa: “These ever-changing challenges have given rise to Travelocity and Expedia, which allow customers to shop with a travel agent but book online after they [travel agents] have done their due diligence.”

He stressed that technology-driven outfits Travelocity and Expedia were a fact of life, so travel agents, whose numbers have dwindled sharply in the past two decades, had to find ways to respond if they are to stay alive.

Travel agencies mostly earn their incomes in commissions, paid by airlines and other businesses, for making sales on their behalf.

But these commissions have been declining in recent years in the face of competition, and in the case of airlines, declining business and heavy losses since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. Most airlines now pay commission of six per cent, down from nine per cent.

Yesterday Pamela Fenton, agreed with Issa’s suggestion and indicated that some agencies were already charging fees for some of the services they provide. Normally, those who charge, apply a US$15 processing fee. They also have a schedule of fees for services not directly related to bookings.

But Fenton, whose own firm, Jetaway Travel applies such charges, suggested that some travel agencies were fearful to follow suit.

“Some agencies don’t want to burden the consumers unduly,” she said. “Some are fearful they will lose business as a result. But it is not so for some agencies who have been doing it, and their customers understand and they appreciate what we do and the help that is offered.”

Issa, who told the travel agents that they would have to band together to push through innovations, said that travel agencies could start with low rates and increase over time.

But the agencies, he suggested, could omit fees once a client booked through them.

“For repeat and loyal customers, then, obviously there would be no charge,” he told the Business Observer.

Work Cited: Business Observer Wednesday, June 11, 2003

Thumbs Up for Breezes – Joey Issa hosts the Funjet Group at Breezes Montego Bay

Photo caption: SuperClubs newest Super-Inclusive resort Breezes Montego Bay, recently hosted a group of international travel personnel from Funjet of the United States. The group was very pleased with the property  and posed with senior vice president of SuperClubs, Joe Issa ( third right, front), and Breezes sales manager Heather Hudson  second right front) prior to their departure.