Dream Vacations celebrates opening in Placitas

PLACITAS — Placitas' connection to the world just got bigger now that a travel agency has moved in.

New Dawn Travels Dream Vacations now has a business front on Homesteads Road, where owner and travel professional Dawn Perreault celebrated her opening Feb. 5.

She discussed why Placitas was a good choice for the new location.

"My demographics are the older age from 55-plus with a higher income and a lot of time available on their hands," she said.

She added that her clients often prefer one-on-one communications and trust.

"Customer service is one of the things that we're really missing in society these days. It just keeps continuously (going down) or it's just non-existent," she said.

Perreault said she matches the trip to the person based on their conversations.

"Because there are so many different companies out there, it's overwhelming for some people and I can hear what they want. I usually go for their age group, the destination, and then we talk budget. But first, you gotta figure out all these other things that they want to do," she said.

If people call her while they're on the trip, she added, she will answer no matter what time of day it is.

For Perreault, river cruises are the best kind of trip to take. As a well-traveled individual herself, she has been to four rivers in Europe and is scheduled to take her next cruse in Amsterdam with a group.

"I started in the business right out of high school, and that was 1983. So, I've been in this business for a long time. I've done multiple different careers," she said. "I was a flight attendant to start off. Then I started travel agencies for people, and I took over a failing travel agency. I literally had a Sunday afternoon to write a three-page business plan to present to a bank Monday morning. In 30 days, I had turned that business around and within nine months, we had 1.2 million sales."

Everything changed in 1999, she said, because air commissions were gone.

"I was managing an air department for a luxury tour company, which was worldwide. I sent people to Italy, I sent people to Machu Picchu, I sent people to the Galapagos, and they went to Thailand ... so I have a very, very big background in travel," she said.

Running a business was something Perreault always wanted to do, and she had an opportunity to buy the vacation service in 2015. She ran the service out of her home for 10 years but found that people wanted an in-person experience.

Then, she said, the owner of Placitas Del Salon offered her a space next door.

"And here I am. It's a great spot," she said.

For more information, visit dperreault.dreamvacations.com.