Patricia Lewis – It’s All in Your Vantage Point

Patricia Lewis – It’s All in Your Vantage Point
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Patricia Lewis is no stranger to having superb vantage. She has traveled the world as part of her company, Vantage Deluxe World Travel, founded by her husband, Henry Lewis, is 1983, and a business she has been part of for the better part of twenty years. Vantage owns a 5-star river cruise ship fleet, representing approximately 5% of the European river cruise market. Each of their ships features 134-176 passengers, making for intimate and enriching travel experiences in the Netherlands, Portugal, Germany, Greece, France, Asia, Antarctica, Cuba, Croatia, and other highly sought after exciting destinations. Their tours aim to offer group adventures designed to bring their clients one of a kind cultural experiences. The Vantage Deluxe World Travel team has helped more than one million customers live out their unique dream vacations around the world. Patricia has been part of all of it; offering her input on designing vacation destinations, selecting excursions, and even acting as a tour guide herself occasionally on special trips (more on that in a moment). When it comes to observing people, places, and adventures, she has a one-of-a-kind vantage point. And because of her vantage point she has become a philanthropic leader in Boston, especially when it comes to honoring heroes in a unique and exciting way, through travel. I recently sat down with Patricia Lewis to learn about the Vantage Foundation and its Vantage Heroes and Vantage Cares programs where she has fashioned her love for travel into a legacy of healing strangers, honoring selfless people, and changing the world.

Floating Therapy: Under the Vantage Heroes program, Vantage Deluxe World Travel sets aside rooms each year which they use to honor groups of people who have been through a tragedy so that they can have time away with one another, to laugh, share stories, and relax. The company has hosted hundreds of families under this program, including those who were injured or lost loved ones in the Boston Marathon attacks, families of United Flight 93 which went down in Shanksville, PA on September 11th, families of the 29 firefighters who died in Yarnell Hill wildfires in Arizona, and families associated with Mass Fallen Heroes, including many Gold Star families, those who lost family members who were serving in the military. Patricia says that her original idea with the program was that occasionally there were empty cabins on some of their cruises, and rather than let them go to waste, there was an opportunity to give the cabins to people who could desperately use a world class vacation. Vantage would provide the airfare for all recipients, and would turn their empty cabins into a luxury retreat for deserving families. The feedback she received from the program was so overwhelming that Vantage began hosting entire communities of people who had heroically faced tragedy, so that they could enjoy the trips together. No longer were they looking to fill unused cabins, but rather reserving clusters of cabins on their ships for special groups they were hosting. What Patricia learned by attending these group events, once again through her unique “vantage” point, was that many of the survivors rarely got to see each other, except for memorials or fundraisers, which were often somber. Patricia soon learned that she was giving families who had faced similar tragedies the opportunity to rest, bond, and build lifelong relationships with one another through one-of-a-kind travel experiences.

Cultivate Caring: Patricia has traveled much of the world and that experience has also allowed her to see an opportunity to make cultural connections for Vantage passengers while simultaneously making important financial impact on small villages along their riverboat tours. Through the Vantage Cares program, Patricia has built a platform where the riverboat cruises make stops along the way where travelers can get out and experience the beautiful culture and people of the cities they visit. For example, Peru has a beautiful mountainside community of citizens in the textile and weaving trade. The Vantage riverboat stops along the route to let their travelers out to meet the weavers, traverse the villages, and immerse themselves in the art and history of the area. The travelers become part of the experience. Patricia says that this is a win-win dynamic for both the travelers and the citizens of the cities and countries they visit. The travelers are submerged into a new and different culture, creating a once in a lifetime experience, while the citizens enjoy sharing their stories and selling their products to the travelers. Patricia says that the positive financial impact that Vantage has created for local villagers along their tour agenda has been massive, giving citizens the financial resources to invest in infrastructure, send their kids to schools, and to build thriving businesses.

When Caring Collides: Patricia says the reason her programs, Vantage Cares and Vantage Heroes, have been so successful is because of her husband’s support of the programs. She says that her husband, Henry Lewis, runs the day to day business of Vantage Deluxe World Travel, and is no stranger to giving back, and if anything, it’s because of him that these programs continue to snowball into a big part of their business. Henry Lewis, founder of the Lewis Foundation, started his nonprofit 10 years ago in order to benefit The West End House Boys and Girls Club in Brighton, Massachusetts. The West End House is a recreational facility for inner city kids, helping more than 2000 youth each year. Lewis was a beneficiary of the services at West End House when he was a kid, and he credits the organization for giving him direction early on, that has resulted in much of his success today. Not only has Lewis raised more than $7 million to benefit the West End House, he now also hosts inner city kids on Vantage Deluxe World Travel trips through the programs created by Patricia. Patricia says that she acted as tour guide on one such recent trip with kids from The West End House, and she says it was magical. Most of the kids had never experienced travel nor ever even had stepped foot on a plane. She says that she’s excited to watch how the lives of these inner-city kids will forever change because they had the experience to travel to new cultures and to experience the world from a whole new vantage point.

Patricia says that having a great vantage point is all about perspective. It’s important to be grateful every day for your blessings including your health, the food on your table, and the roof over your head. And, she says, when your vantage is really amazing, do what you can to share it with someone else, because you never really know how lending your perspective to someone else can really change their world forever.

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