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Reed has done more than anyone else in the world to lure the American abroad and make his trip a success. As the senior godfather and Grand Pooh-Bah of U.S. tourism, he has also pushed American Express farther in his twelve years as president than it had gone in the previous 93. Home-away-from-Homebuilder Reed has expanded the company's offices from 50 to 344, which handle $3.5 billion worth of business, hiked its payroll from 1,500 employees to 8,600, boosted total assets to $621 million (up 318%).
Dates for Daughters. One in five Americans abroad will descend on the company's offices. Many will travel on American Express tours; others will come in to arrange local sightseeing excursions. But many will be on their own, use the offices to cash traveler's checks, compare notes with compatriots and ask the tourist's endless questions. To handle the midsummer mass of vacationers in Paris, the company this month will complete a $750,000 modernization job in its 11 Rue Scribe office; in London, it is expanding into another building near its cream-colored headquarters in the Haymarket. Even after hours, Americans will still drift down to the offices, trustfully garnishing the doors with communiqués such as the message noted recently in Geneva: "To John and Mary. Just arrived. Staying at Hotel Continental. Elmer."
For the bored, bothered or bewildered, American Express serves as hand-holder and troubleshooter, post office and police station, lonely hearts club and tracer of lost persons. It will make appointments with English-speaking dentists, steer dieters to low-calorie restaurants, get dates for the daughters of VIPs, supply baby sitters in Europe and bottled drinking water in Asia. "All these free services are like the salted peanuts on the bar," says Vice President Louis S. Kelly. "They cost us money, but they sell beer."
For the customer with both the cash and the thirst, American Express will charter and service a yacht, rent a villa on the Riviera, organize a tour of Pygmy villages in French Equatorial Africa, negotiate the lease of a private salmon river with the Norwegian government. Last year the company's Louisville (Ky.) office gratified the ambition of a man who wanted to boast that he had been to Timbuktu, got him there by taxi, plane and mail truck. When Cinemactor Ramon Novarro had wanderlust one evening in Paris, a company agent worked all night to get him off by 10 a.m. next day on an eight-nation, twelve-city tour.