A good politician is a listener, a networker, an organizer—and doesn’t that sound just like a good travel advisor? So perhaps it’s no surprise that, as an election year nears, some travel advisors are throwing their hats in the ring and putting their names on the ballot. From Jay Ellenby, who got his political experience at ASTA, to Nikki Miller in the small town of Portage, MI, to Mayor Magda Byrne of Lansdowne, PA, travel professionals are thinking their skills just might translate into this new arena.
Nikki Miller’s family has lived in Portage for three generations. She has spent 90% of her life on the same street, and her agency, Travel with Nikki, is based here. As the city grows and develops, she feels the call to make her opinions, and those of her friends, heard. So she is running for Portage City Council.
The City Council is responsible for “anything to do with the city that is not schools,” including policy-making, zoning changes, housing development, business development and budgets. Recently it has been approving lots of individual projects without looking at how they impact one another, like changing a road from four lanes to two but then approving two housing developments on it—a sure prescription for traffic issues, Miller thinks. Like when you plan a trip, she says, “you have to look at all the aspects.”
While Miller was appointed a few years ago to the local Airport Board, where she represents the leisure travel community in a group that otherwise is focused on business travelers, her family “has no political history whatsoever,” and this is her first election. “I just decided myself to do this. I’m going in blind and finding those connections to guide me along the way,” she says.
After jumping into the race on the very last day possible, and with the election looming on November 7, she knows “the runway for campaigning is very short.” In the early weeks of the campaign, during the traditional travel booking lull of July and early August, she spent five or six hours a day getting things up and running. Now, just as travel is ramping back up, she is knee-deep in it.
“It’s like getting my travel business started: build the website, develop the logo, put together literature through Canva. Now I’m diving into fund raising, talking to everyone I know in an elected position, getting to as many events as possible. I used to go to business networking events for my travel business and now it’s community networking events, like this week’s Womens Equality Day luncheon, senior center groups, small affinity groups throughout the city.”
In politics, as in travel, you have to just plain love what you do. “Someone mentioned $6,000 a year but I’m not 100% sure about the pay,” she says. “I thought it was volunteer, like the airport board.”
For now, though, she may just be spending more than she will make. She has ordered t-shirts, banners, large 6 x 9 postcards. She needs yard signs, but hesitates at the price tag of $15 each. Her fundraising goal is $10,000 to include digital ads, but she can get by with just print for $6,000-8,000. If donations run low, she can always front some as a loan and then pay herself back.
What she knows about politics she learned the same way she learned about travel: from webinars, brochures, various online postings, networking. “No one place has all the information you need.”
ASTA Experience Helps
More experienced at campaigning is Jay Ellenby, president of Safe Harbors Business Travel in Bel Air, MD, part of World Via Travel Group. In the travel industry since 1990 and past chair of ASTA, he’s been “looking at politics from afar” for some time before finally running for office last year.
“Really, what gave me the juice was my involvement with ASTA,” he says. “I testified a number of times for state matters and a number of times on behalf of ASTA, and I went to ASTA’s Legislative Day. Those meetings with legislators gave me a sense of what was out there—and that brought me home to my own community, where I saw that I really was not being represented at all. So I filed to represent our area in Annapolis as a state delegate for Maryland last year.”
Alas, running against a 20-year incumbent and despite leading on election night, he lost by 136 votes. Undeterred, Ellenby says he will “take a look at other seats” and run again. “A lot can happen.”
His advice for newcomers like Miller? “Understand how the sausage is made. Go to Legislative Day and see how it works. Many people are intimidated by legislators but don’t be.”
Make sure you testify in your own state and local jurisdictions—and most important, get out there and get your name known. Ellenby knocked on 5,000 doors during his campaign. But also be sure you are known in the political circles. Get support from the local party. If there’s a debate, be in it.
And like any good travel advisor, keep an eye on the customer data. Who’s voted in the past in your area? “I’ve learned from the data that there are certain pockets of people I should have spent more time with, and I certainly will do that next time,” he says.
It’s also important to start early. Where he started campaigning just 8 months in advance of the election, he suggests that 18 to 24 months is more realistic. And you’ll need the right infrastructure within your business as well. “Ramp-up to an election is extremely time-consuming, so make sure you have enough support.” he says. “I had a great campaign manager, a great treasurer and a really good core of people.
Does he think the travel advisor skill set carries over to the rough and tumble world of politics? “Think about all the things we do constantly: We change on a dime. We know how to adapt, how to connect with clients and constituents, how to build a team. It’s about referrals and social media. There’s a lot of transfer from owning a travel agency,” he says.
His tips for Miller? “Create a trust factor. Make those connections. You’re not going to be everything to everybody but you have to find some way to be understanding and listen to every opinion. Be yourself, be real. That’s certainly something travel advisors do very well.”
30 Hours a Month as Mayor
For Magda Byrne, meanwhile, running for office came easy. But serving as mayor of Lansdowne, PA, is proving to be a little harder.
“My first tip would be to really find out what the job entails, because often it’s a lot more work than it seems,” she says. As mayor she goes to two council meetings a month plus all public safety committee meetings, because in Pennsylvania the mayor is the executive leadership for the police department. Then she attends other committee meetings to which she is invited or where items of interest to her are discussed. Often those “leave you with homework, where you need to find a particular policy, or advocate for a policy to be created, or work with the council for a request from one of your subcommittees. You have to be willing to do that work.”
Despite a full-time job and a part-time career as an IC for Book Here Give Here Travel, Byrne spends 25 or 30 hours a month being mayor. It’s an elected position, but over 18 years of volunteer work and 8 years on the town council she has met virtually everyone in her 1.2-square-mile town. So when the former mayor retired two years ago, she ran unopposed for an unpaid four-year term.
All three of her jobs are about customer service, Byrne notes. “You want to make sure people are comfortable, that they’re either getting what they want or happy with what they get. It’s like talking to a budget traveler who wants to stay at the Four Seasons for $1,000—you say okay, this is the nicest place I can get you for $1,000. These are things you mentioned to me in conversation that you’d be interested in, and these are the features the hotel offers. I think you’ll be happy with it. Why don’t you take a look?
“You always want folks to feel like they got their money’s worth, so they come back and pick you again. I take the information they give me and figure out how to make them feel good about the world we live in. It’s important to be accessible and truthful. In a lot of ways, it is just like being a travel advisor.”
There’s much to be learned from politics that helps her travel business, too. “Travel advisors sometimes talk about firing clients—but you don’t get to do that as an elected official. You really learn to work with all different kinds of personalities. If they’re not good communicators, you have to be able to figure out what it is they want. To build your network you need people to want to talk to you, to give you those inside scoops. And those are all things you need as a travel advisor as well.”
Here’s a final tip for those looking to combine travel and politics. In New York, Rebecca Alesia was elected as a Town of Oyster Bay Councilperson in 2010; by 2017 she had run for re-election twice, and also begun a travel business that was selling close to $2 million—but working all the time. She gave up politics in favor of travel.
Her advice? “Be very mindful of separating your clients from your constituents; you don’t want to be in a position of treating anyone differently just because they have booked travel with you. Being in the public eye is, of course, a great way to increase your exposure to the community and get your name out there, which can benefit your business; however, if an unpopular decision needs to be made, that can also impact people’s willingness to work with your agency. All in all, a desire to commit to public service is an amazing calling. But it definitely creates a balancing act between home/life/work boundaries that can be challenging.”
What are you up to these days? If you are trying something new or have a good story to share, I’d love to hear it. Email crosentravel@gmail.com or post on my Facebook page—and your 15 minutes of fame might be at hand!
Cheryl’s 40-year career in journalism is bookended by roles in the travel industry, including Executive Editor of Business Travel News in the 1990s, and recently, Editor in Chief of Travel Market Report and admin of Cheryl Rosen’s Group for Travel Professionals, a news and support group on Facebook. As an independent contractor since retiring from the 9-to-5 to travel more, she has written regular articles about the life and business of travel agents for Luxury Travel Advisor, Travel Agent, and Insider Travel Report. She also writes and edits for professional publications in the financial services, business, and technology sectors.
