The largest company in the world for tourism to Italy, Perillo Tours has made a name for itself through its creative advertising campaigns. Best known for their television commercials, Mario Perillo became the face of Italian travel and a celebrity in his own right. So much so, he garnered the nickname “Mr. Italy.” Domino’s Pizza invited him to become their advertising spokesman and the business quickly integrated itself in pop culture, having made reference to in shows and films like SNL and Four Deadly Reasons.
2020 marks 75 years in business for the tour operating company and the man running the show is none other than CEO Steve Perillo, Mario’s son.
As innovative as ever, Steve spoke with NOIAFT founder, Taylor Taglianetti, about the past, present, and future of the business.
I saw Anthony Rodia’s Perillo Tours skit on my newsfeed the day before we set this up.
Oh! You did? That’s great. It got 300,000 views. He’s exploding.
Yes! He has so many followers. Even people I know who aren’t Italian are always sharing his videos. Smart advertising on your end. Your history of advertising and its impact on the television industry is actually quite fascinating.
It’s all corny, homemade stuff. They work somehow.
Look, when SNL does a parody about them and Adam Sandler is playing a version of you, I think that’s a signal of your success!
Yeah, that was huge! SNL has mentioned Perillo Tours three times in the last thirty years, but the most recent one was the biggest. What happens is that we do a commercial and people see it and they start thinking about our trips. We have to court customers for two or three years before they actually put down their credit cards because the trips are about $10,000 per couple so it takes years. My theory is that my friends will all buy trips from me so I try to make customers into friends. That’s why we personalize and most companies aren’t in a position to personalize the owner like we’ve done. Look at that woman who does those insurance commercials for the last fifteen years.
Flo from Progressive?
Flo! How do you…that’s a career! Isn’t that? There’s been nothing like that ever. Ever! It’s a full-time job. Geico started with the great commercials before them. They really had it to themselves. Brilliant with the lizard. What about George Foreman? He started out selling grills and now he sells insurance. He knows nothing about insurance, but people trust him because he’s George Foreman. People don’t know Steve Perillo from Adam so we have to invest money to become known. It pays off, for instance, when SNL does the skit, which really helped us last year. That kind of publicity was unbelievable. I also have a relationship with Joe Piscopo. We did a trip with Joe and he brought 80 people over. He did a concert as Frank Sinatra and I played the piano.
Right, you’re an artist yourself. Tell me about that.
Yeah, I’m into classical music. I’m really practicing the piano now. Getting better, too. Finally getting better. I can’t believe it. When you get older, you learn how to practice. The secret to an instrument is the discipline to practice slowly for hours. When you’re young, you just don’t have it.
Did you put your music passion off to the side for the tour business?
Yeah, I did. I have a bunch of CDs of orchestra music. Why did I join the family business? I did not make it in music. I didn’t come exploding out into the music scene. If I did, I would have done that. I’ve written a lot of good music, if you ask me.
Hey, you have to put your music in some films!
Yeah. There’s a lot of fields: music, physics, chess; you can’t win chess tournaments when you’re 35, 40. You’re too old. It’s amazing how that works, how you start losing your mental capacity so enjoy it while you have it.
I want to ask you about how the coronavirus is affecting your business. I saw you were on the news in March and so much has changed since then. How are you adapting and reimagining the business now?
Well, it’s still early, but it’s starting to come into focus what is happening. This thing is going to be around probably well into next year. So, we’re in the worst possible business. That’s because we have airports and airplanes. And then, you get on a bus and then you go all together into a hotel lobby. And then, you go out to a restaurant and then you go to a museum. Oh and then you go to a cathedral, too! So, these are all businesses that are all crowd-driven. They’re all foreigners and they’re all older people. There’s no way this year is going to work at all, but I’m figuring it out as is everyone in my industry. Tour operating is a small industry. There’s only about five or ten of the major ones; we are one of those. So, we’re thinking in terms of going with smaller groups and in smaller aircrafts so I started thinking: private jets! Have you ever been in a private jet. Wouldn’t that be cool?
Psh, let’s start that now.
My main dream in life is to have my own private jet. I don’t care about money, but can you imagine? Going to a foreign land and it takes three hours and you come back! It opens up the whole world to you. You can go anywhere, anytime you want.
Anyway, I started figuring out which airports are small, that have no security lines. No security administrations. You just drive your car up to the plane. Sixteen people on the flight. It costs $150,000. $9,000 a person to go round-trip to Europe. Spend most of your time on the countryside in Tuscany. That’s the way I’m thinking, but we really have no control over the matter. It’s really what Italian law, American law, the airlines…what they all want us to do. Will people even want to travel after this? That’s a whole other part of this. A lot of people are losing their jobs. Stock markets are down. I think real estate is still holding firm. Otherwise, I did start virtual reality videos.
I saw that! I was very curious about it…I actually have that as my next question.
We have two apps. Have you put on VR glasses yet?
I have, but I’m not a frequent user. I have to tell you though, they are the coolest things. It is unreal. I went on a ride at the Staten Island Mall once with them on. It was supposed to feel like you were getting attacked by sharks. It was terrifying!
It’s like you’re there. I did a tour of the White House with Obama. Ten minutes. I went to sleep at night and I thought I was there. Your brain has fooled you into thinking you were really there. I was in rooms. I could see the Oval Office. Now we’re getting a lot more publicity because of this. I did a video explaining the history of 3D glasses.
Two thousand people asked for headsets from that video. That would never happen. We ask to send people free brochures to show them what we do. They like a real book. Something they can have on the kitchen table. Anyone can have a website. So, to promote your business, it’s really quite surprising what that did. We do have websites, Perillo Tours VR and Travel World VR. We used it as a promotion initially, but if you think about an old person in a nursing home, it could really replace travel.
It might become a little uncomfortable on your head for more than ten minutes, which is becoming an issue, but there’s a way around that. It’s becoming better. I think the day is going to come. Here’s where it’s really going to come. Stand on a circular treadmill, move your feet, forward left and right, and you’re moving around the streets of Paris. Everything is there. It hasn’t hit though. I judge the success by Christmas presents. The drone was the big one, two years ago. The flatscreen television. GoPros. What have been some of the other big Christmas presents?
Hmm…those hoverboards a couple of years ago?
Yeah, that was big three years ago. I have three of them! I have four drones, if anyone wants any. Also, a pogostick. That’s the hardest thing to do.
With the virtual reality glasses on, of course.
Ha! I’ve never mastered that. I wanted to master juggling, too.
Well, you got music down.
Yeah, right? Alright, I’m ready for another question!
I want to know how you’re making your commercials and productions during this time. I saw in your video that you have a studio, of sorts, in the basement of your headquarters. Is the coronavirus affecting the production of these videos? I see it’s only one or two people in a room so it’s pretty safe.
We don’t make commercials that frequently. Our buyer is Intermedia in Los Angeles. They do two kinds of buys. There’s cash buys where you just buy actual shows. So, Fox News, CNN, and big things like that during primetime. Then, we’ll buy pay per inquiry where we pay about $60 dollars per phone call. The stations will put us on during a hockey game, for instance. We’ll get twenty brochure requests and we’ll pay them $60 times 20…what is that $1,200?
Hey, I’m a filmmaker. I couldn’t tell you anything about math.
Taylor, c’mon! Let’s see if I’m even right.
You said 60 or 16? Yeah, it’s $1,200, if it’s 60!
It’s amazing how we even make money. $60 for just sending a brochure. We have produced the commercials in LA for the last five years and we only do it once every year or once every two years. We were going to go this year in June to shoot three more. We do a lot of testimonial-style commercials where we find people in the LA area who have been on our trips and want to say nice things. They’re in their 30s and 60s. We are the only tour operator who does TV. The only ones in the travel business who do TV are airlines, cruise lines, hotels, trains, buses, and so on, but if you want to travel on a tour, it’s very rare.
My grandfather started with the Italian radio stations in New York. There were full-time Italian language stations, can you imagine that? My father moved to television and it’s just something that we’re stuck with now. If we stopped TV, I don’t know where we would be because most tour operators mostly go through travel agents. Travels agents are very important partners of the travel business. Did you ever use a travel agent? If you wanted to go to…let’s think of a tough one…New Zealand, how would you do it?
I’d just go online. See whatever the first result is.
So you’d buy airfare, hotel, or get a package. You wouldn’t get a tour at your age. I guess there’s under-35 tours.
So you never target younger generations? I feel like with Anthony Rodia’s social media presence, he reaches all generations. Are you trying to target younger folks now?
It’s not our sweet spot. The tour business is made for older people, but now we’re faced with this thing where I think the younger people, millennials, will be the first out of the house, the first not scared. They won’t die from the virus, most of the time. Now is the market for millennials because they’re going to come out.
Also, they’re natural advertisers by habit. A young person goes to a fun restaurant. They immediately take a picture and post it online. Same with travel. They can’t help but post everything they are experiencing. I think the younger generations are promoting a lot of business, most of the time subconsciously.
I never thought of that.
Hey, how did you manage getting the domain name www.steve.com? You must have been there right at the start of the internet and knew what was bound to come.
Yeah. I should really use it more. Such a cool thing. I got it in 1995 for $10,000. That’s how I did it. Somebody had it. $10,000 was probably too much. Nobody knew what was going to happen with domain names. I started buying domain names for tours.
Tours are the best way to make money. 40 people together on a bus. If you do individuals, it’s a lot of work setting up individually for people. You have to charge almost the same amount so you don’t make that much. The domain I first bought was italyvacations.com which makes all of the sense in the world and I own all of the similar ones. Meanwhile, at the same time, people were naming their things random syllables and words. Think: Google, Yahoo!, Amazon. My strategy was having a name relevant to my business.
Is there anything else you want to say?
We’re open to helping film crews find shooting locations and permits, among other services and resources. We’re starting to pursue that in a big way. I’m also developing a film with my cousin, Paul Borghese, who’s a veteran director. I hope to be filming in Italy in the near future. Actually, before the crowds return would be the ideal time! Production in Italy is complex because of all the permits, but it’s something we CAN do and we’re already doing with Paul.
For more on Perillo Tours, please visit https://www.perillotours.com/. You can also check out this YouTube video which gives a fascinating look into the business.