If you’ve been reading my column for any amount of time, I trust you know my goal is always to help the travel industry in general—and travel advisors in particular. To that end, I always try my very hardest to never say anything negative about a travel advisor. But on very rare occasions, the interests of a single TA and those of the industry conflict, and I have to make the hard choice to call them out.
This is one of those times.
As a travel reporter, I subscribe to Google Alerts, a service that emails me stories every day on keywords I have chosen. They send me links to “cruise,” “Delta,” “resort,” “Italy travel” – and of course, “travel agents.” (Google has not yet really come around to the term “travel advisor.”)
I learned with dismay last week of the arrest of Melissa Hanna, 43, by the Kershaw County (South Carolina) Sheriff’s Office, who charged Hanna with breach of trust (over $2,000, less than $10,000), obtaining a signature or property under false pretense (above $10,000), and financial transaction card fraud (over $500). She is also under investigation in at least six other incidents of fraud.
The arrest warrant alleges that she charged her own $8,000 Carnival Cruise to a client’s credit card, and pocketed $17,000 that another family paid toward its vacation instead of making the booking for them. The local news reported that she turned herself in to the authorities and was released the same day on a personal recognizance bond.
It’s not the first time something like this has come across my desk. Six years ago, I wrote about a case of a TA who went to jail for defrauding her agency by booking customers under a separate IATA number, effectively stealing her agency’s business (Agent Pleads Guilty To Felony Grand Theft For Stealing $250K In Bookings From Her Travel Agency – travelmarketreport.com). Usually, though, when there is an arrest involving travel, it involves someone misrepresenting herself as a TA to abscond with customer monies in some way—and almost always it’s in a foreign country.
I gave some thought to whether to call out this travel advisor in public. But I read the Facebook posts by her victims and customers, her friends and neighbors, and thought about how much harm she has caused to the good name of all travel advisors, to the professional and honest and caring management team of her Dream Vacations franchise and its parent company World Travel Holdings (WTH), and to all the Dream vacations franchisees.
I’ll note that I’ve had the honor of attending the Cruise One/Dream Vacations/Cruises Inc. national conferences for the past few years, and I’ve spent a lot of time talking with and interviewing their management team and franchisees. I’ve always felt their travel advisors were a particularly entrepreneurial and smart bunch, willing to commit to monthly franchise fees and still confident they can be profitable. Of all those harmed by this agent gone rogue, they arguably are harmed the most, as her name and theirs are linked in people’s minds and on Facebook and business pages.
(I sympathize with the owner of the “Melissa’s Dream Vacations” Facebook page, for example; she is not Melissa Hanna, but a completely different Melissa in a different state, the owner of a different agency. But apparently someone confused them and posted an angry, “Is this the agency on WISTV news?” in big letters on the page.)
I spoke with WTH chief operating officer Debbie Fiorino, who told me that Hanna started with Cruises Inc. in 2017 and has been a solo franchise owner since October 2021. As they do for anyone applying for a franchise, WTH did its due diligence before accepting her; her background checks came back clear and there was never a sign of trouble before.
“I know no one in our industry would argue that this could happen anywhere in the travel agent community and doesn’t necessarily represent any travel agency or host. There are nefarious people in every industry; we are all at risk of people coming in and doing unscrupulous things. It’s not to minimize what happened but to underscore how vigilant we need to be to weed these people out,” Fiorino told me.
“As an industry, we work so hard to express the value of a travel advisor. We need to help protect each other. I want my peers, competitors, customers, and suppliers to know this behavior is something that none of us should ever stand for or allow to represent our industry. And if it does happen, we should share it with each other so dishonest agents do not try to go do business somewhere else within the industry.”
WTH is reaching out and offering support services to anyone who has a future booking through her agency. “Right now, our focus is on the customer,” Fiorino said. “We’re looking out at her book of business, contacting everyone, and doing the right thing by her customers one by one.”
Even before any court proceedings, Hanna’s franchise has been terminated. “We’re not a judge and jury,” Fiorino said, “but we have enough evidence to see that she has broken her franchise agreement and used payment methods that were not approved.”
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.