Chris Conlin knew he had to adapt or die.

When the Internet began muscling in on the travel agency industry 15 years ago, Conlin, owner of Conlin Travel in Ann Arbor, saw the future: Do-it-yourself travelers were booking their own airline tickets and making their own hotel reservations. 

The Internet, he said, would weed out the strong from the weak, and Conlin wanted to make sure the company his father founded in 1959 would still be standing when the sorting was done.

Chris Conlin, left, and his father Tom Conlin. Chris bought the business from his dad, 10 years ago. Tom Conlin founded the company in an apartment on South University in 1959. It moved into a storefront shortly after, where it remained for 35 years. Today, the office is located on Washtenaw Avenue at Huron Parkway.

Janet Miller for AnnArbor.com

As the state’s largest privately owned travel agency celebrating its 50th anniversary, the company came out of it stronger, Conlin said, by adding value and by repositioning itself with the business traveler.

The company’s new Web site, launched in September, reflects the shift in the way Conlin approaches its leisure travel business. Instead of tempting Web site visitors with pictures and information about vacation destinations, the site introduces customers to its location experts rather that its locations.

“It’s about finding the right travel agent, not the right travel agency,” Conlin said. “For the first time, you don’t see a link for a trip to France, you see a link to the person who is an expert on a trip to France.”

It’s the value that’s added by dealing with a location expert - someone who can make suggestions before you go and solve problems once you’re there - that separates the agency from the Internet, Conlin said. “The value of a travel consultant isn’t fully realized until there is a problem.”

The travel business began changing before the Internet debuted, Conlin said. When his father, Tom Conlin, started, he said, “you had to be appointed by an airline and you pretty much just issued their tickets. That was the travel business back then.”

But Tom Conlin grew the business, chartering planes to Europe for group tours. In the early days, he sold seven-night trips to Rome, airfare, lodging and breakfast included, for $299, Conlin said. And Conlin was the first travel agency in the country to charter the Concorde, the super-fast, supersonic airliner that made the transatlantic flight.

Over the years, Conlin has had up to three offices in Ann Arbor and locations stretching from Houston to Hartford. Today, it has an office in Ann Arbor, Traverse City, Lansing and San Francisco.

“People think of us as a ma and pop traditional travel agency, that we sell vacation trips,” Conlin said. “But that’s only five percent of what we do.” At its peak, leisure travel accounted for 25 percent of Conlin’s revenue.

The emphasis has shifted to managed business travel services, Conlin said, where corporate travel is not only booked but monitored and analyzed by the agency. It’s this value-added service - Conlin provides its corporate customers with a record of its travel history along with ways travel dollars can be saved - that has attracted a growing number of business clients.

“Our fees may be 1 or 2 percent of (a company’s) overall travel budget, but we can help to reduce the rest of the 98 percent that’s being spent,” he said. A company’s employees can still book their own travel, but on a members-only Web site that Conlin maintains.

This services has grown in the past year as companies look for ways to maximize their travel dollars, Conlin said. And while the volume of travel has dropped in the past year (overall revenues at Conlin fell from $62 million in 2008 to a projected $55 million this year), the number of corporate clients has increased 10 percent, Conlin said. The state of Michigan is one of Conlin’s new customes, and Conlin hopes to see managed business travel services increase 25 to 30 percent over the coming year.

STA Travel, catering to students and teachers, has also adapted. Its Ann Arbor office, located on the ground floor of the Michigan Union, was the first of the company’s 18 retail locations around the country to get a facelift as a result of its rebranding efforts. That was rolled out when students returned this fall.

“We haven’t so much repositioned ourselves as we’ve utilized what we have to the fullest extent,” said Patrick Evans, company spokesman. That means a redesigned storefront that color-codes travel regions, an LCD board that shows the latest airline fares and an easy to navigate map and brochure section.

While STA’s niche remains discount travel for students age 18-26 along with teachers and professors, it is also adding value to what it does, such as offering free stopovers on some of its trips.

“For instance, you can stop for free in Fiji or New Zealand on some flights on your way to Australia,” Evans said. “You can’t get that if you go online.” STA also offers student discounts that can’t be found on the Web.

And it updated its Web site, offering more destination information, such as local temperatures, events and a blog. While there’s a $7 booking fee for travelers, most of the company’s revenue comes from providers, such as airlines.