Independent contractors are the backbone of the industry, Lee says, at the Host Week 2024 kick-off.
There have been four notable trends in the hosted travel advisor market, says Steph Lee:
- A ton of new advisors are coming down the pipeline and interest in a travel career is at an all-time high.
- Independent contractors with three years of experience are earning an average of $60,000.
- Hosted advisors make up the majority of the travel advisor distribution channel.
- More agencies are expanding into hosting than ever before, and the largest agencies are growing fastest.
Those are the takeaways from the opening session of Host Agency Reviews’ 2024 Host Week, a weeklong online love and education fest for independent contractors and their hosts that began today (Host Week 2024! | Host Agency Reviews).
There was “a crazy level of interest” in becoming a travel agent last year, and inquiries to host agency reviews are up a whopping 66%, Lee said. And that’s good news for the industry as a whole, as a huge influx of advisors is going to need their support in this busiest year ever.
“In an industry that’s bogged down with customer requests, we’re so excited that you’re here!” she said.
For HAR’s recent survey of the industry, one out of four respondents was new to the industry, up 11 percentage points from the previous year. The Travel Institute reports that 71% of travel advisors are now independent contractors.
Independent contractors are more professional than they used to be, too. In 2019 50% of hosted advisors were working in travel full time–but in 2022, the number rose by more than a third, to 66%.
The “average” independent contractor today has annual sales of just under $500,000 and earns an income of $60,000 after three years in business. Her number-one product is ocean cruises, and her commission split is 80% for the first three years and 90% thereafter.
There were 150 host agencies in 2019—a number that leaped to 204 last year and 243 today. They each host an average of 393 agents, up from 376 last year, with most growth at high end, among networks that host more than 500 agents. The number of hosts with more than 1,000 agents saw a huge jump, to 4,000 today from 2,900 in 2019.
