Community Highlights: Meet Ashley and Brian Guastella of Every Little Thing Custom Travel

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley and Brian Guastella.

Hi Ashley and Brian, please start by introducing yourself. We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
Every Little Thing Custom Travel was built from our love of adventure. From our travels over the past 25 years together, we have amazing stories and incredible pictures to share about our unique places and special experiences when visiting new locations. As working parents, our time is valuable, and we created detailed trip itineraries to ensure we maximized our time exploring new places. Upon request, we started planning travel for friends and family and thoroughly enjoyed seeing how much less stressful the vacation was for them, much fun they had, and how much easier having someone else plan the itinerary made their time away. We quickly decided to expand our business to offer our services to others through two divisions of our company: personal travel and corporate travel.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We are fortunate that the road to starting our company was fairly smooth. We both have strong project management and logistics skills from our other professional endeavors (Brian is an accomplished high school business teacher. Ashley is a hospital Administrative Director and soon-to-be MBA graduate) and those skills have undoubtedly eased the process of entering the entrepreneurship world. The initial start-up of the business was the part of the journey that posed the biggest challenges. Tasks like creating a business plan, deciding on a marketing strategy, and maintaining a strong brand identity were time-consuming, and we wanted to ensure we got them right. Initial capital investment was also something to consider, and we performed as much of the work as possible to maintain control of the process and ease costs.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Every Little Thing Custom Travel has two divisions: personal travel and corporate travel. We enhance our customers’ travel experiences in three ways:

• Researching dining, lodging, transportation, and activities based on customer preferences
• Creating bespoke itineraries to take the stress out of traveling
• Booking reservations for our customers; we have access to Disney, Universal, all major cruise lines, airlines, car rentals, and all-inclusive resorts.
• Our corporate travel division assumes the responsibility of logistics for getting people to an event, conference, or large gathering. We provide comprehensive and detailed itineraries and exemplary customer service that leaves travelers comfortable with where they have to be and when. Our services allow corporate planners to focus on the event and leave the details of how to get attendees there to us.

While our ability to take the stress away from our customers is always our priority, we are known for our talent for sensing what our clients want to experience in their travels and then designing a trip customized to them specifically. We recently planned a honeymoon for an active couple who were torn between wanting an adventurous trip and wanting to relax; we found them a location with the beach in front of them and a mountain behind them and met both goals.

The other skill we’re widely known for is our research. While it may seem strange that there are folks who don’t know about Monell’s banana pudding or Nashville Soft Pretzel Company’s Croissantzels, travelers coming to Nashville count on us to tell them about the city’s hidden gems like these. We take pride in our ability to find items unique to different locations. The most fun activities are only sometimes the most expensive, and our customers rave about our ability to find them unique and fun things to do that they can’t find elsewhere. We recently sent clients just outside of the city they were visiting to a small Mexican restaurant for a burrito that just won a bracket competition in a national magazine; they listed it as a highlight of their trip.

Do you have any advice for those just starting?

1. Use what you have! We were shocked by how many skills we already had that applied to the business start-up process. We took advantage of Brian’s website skills from his teaching background to create our company page. Ashley’s logistics background translates to our corporate planning tasks very well. Networking with people we already knew was how we found our first customers.
2. Find experts and learn from their experience! Before we launched, we consulted several industry professionals to soak up as much information from them as we could. Specifically, meeting with a business start-up accounting specialist was invaluable, and we would recommend that to anyone getting ready to launch a business.

Pricing:

• The Essentials Package – $195. -Two personal consultations to determine the travel location(s), personal preferences, and special wants and needs gathered from ELT’s custom travel design questionnaire. -A customized list of suggested modes of transportation (airfare options, car rental, public transportation, ride sharing, etc.). -A list of lodging options, including unconventional experience options, tailored to your preferences. -Suggested restaurants, bars, and activities grouped by individual attributes and cost.
• The Insider Package – $345. The Insider tier includes everything offered in The Essentials, plus: -Two additional personal consultations (if needed). -A customized daily activity plan, including anticipated costs. -Booking of three no-cost reservations of your choice (example: restaurant reservations). -A customized tips and tricks document designed especially for you and your trip.
• The Experience Package – $495. The Experience tier includes everything in The Essentials AND The Insider, plus: A customized comprehensive itinerary, including -A detailed time schedule, with arrival / departure / travel-between-activity times -Estimated itemized budgets for transportation, lodging, and each meal/activity -Special emphasis on providing a unique travel experience, tailored to your interests -A trip targeted to stay within a budget set by you in the initial consultation process. -Unlimited booking of no-cost reservations of your choice (example: restaurant reservations).

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.everylittlethingcustomtravel.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everylittlethingcustomtravel/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/everylittlethingcustomtravel/