Talk about a distribution channel. Thanks to 300,000 leads that came into the Travel Leaders Network website, the consortium’s Agent Profiler system delivered three-quarters of a billion dollars’ worth of new revenue—68,750 bookings at an average of about $10,000, for a total of $733 million—to its 6,000 travel agency members in 2024, at a close rate of almost 1:4.
That was the best of several great numbers Travel Leaders president John Lovell shared at the group’s annual press conference at the Ritz Carlton Nomad in New York last week. A few more: 2024 was its best year ever, with revenue up 17% over 2023 and overall sales up more than $1 billion. Land sales grew 9.7% from 2023 to 2024 and cruise sales by a whopping 25.1%, 66% more than the cruise industry as a whole, proving “the consumer is coming back in droves to the travel advisor distribution channel. It’s the golden age of travel advisors that we talked about last year,” Lovell said. “And where it stops, nobody knows.”
So far in 2025, cruise sales remain strong, with river and luxury cruises up 33% and 26% year-to-date versus the same time last year, and premium and contemporary up 16% and 12%, respectively. FIT and touring also remain strong, up 23%.
TLG added 850 travel agencies with a combined volume of $1.5 billion over past five years, including 315 in 2024, with a volume of $417.3 million, and 41 new agencies in Canada over the past three years.
On the tech front, the Cruise Complete booking engine that launched two years ago now has 21 suppliers signed up. But the most exciting news is the adoption of the “super simple” SNAP platform, a “low-risk commissionable program” for non-GDS booking of air, hotel and car introduced a year ago by TL parent Internova, now used by 13,000 member agencies. In addition to offering a new revenue stream for travel advisors, who now can easily sell airline tickets without the need for a GDS, SNAP allows them to be full-service providers, caring for clients from the time they leave home until they walk back in the door. Providing air for clients’ vacations drops the cancellation rate by 39%, said COO Lindsay Pearlman. (For more, see Earning an Extra $50K: Travel Advisors Who Sell Air Say It’s Worth the Effort | Travel Research Online.)
Travel Leaders also is moving toward becoming CRM-agnostic, said Stephen McGillivray, chief partner marketing officer at parent company Internova Travel Group. In addition to ClientBase and Tres, Travel Leaders’ systems this month will begin accepting data from VacationCRM and soon also will add Tess.
To help travel advisors better understand how to integrate the new technologies—and use them to grow their revenue streams—Travel Leaders will be doubling its field presence, going out in the field to meet with advisors individually. “Not every agency will use every product, but even if you use only three, we’re going to make sure you are using them well,” Pearlman said.
How to Build a Better Profile
Travel Leaders also is introducing a new tier-based system to the Agent Profiler system. In addition to the SuperAgent designation, which brings more referrals from consumers coming to the website, advisors now can qualify for SuperAgent Gold or SuperAgent Diamond status, based on achieving better metrics around close rates, response times, higher ratings and better reviews, said chief information officer Cory Voss.
Indeed, Pearlman told TRO, a great business starts with a great online presence—and a great presence starts with a great bio. Toby AI, an industry-specific AI system that Travel Leaders offers members—can help even the least-techie travel advisors look and sound better. But it’s up the travel advisors to continually update their profiles, Pearlman emphasized. TLN’s top performers add to theirs whenever they go on a trip, and pay attention to the details: a good photo of themselves, great pictures of destinations—and making sure they themselves are in the pictures, having fun, whenever possible. “It’s the little things that resonate with consumers,” he said.
McGillivray also suggested posting multiple bios, each focused on a different specialty, to attract customers asking AI for advisors with different specialties. “Travel advisors are good at more than one thing,” he said. “So tell more than one story.”
Into the New Year
Heading into 2025, “the Golden Age of travel advisors is alive and well,” Lovell says. “Last year was the renaissance starting, and 2025 will be the best year in history for us.”
As the year progresses, watch for an enhanced version of Agent Universe that will allow travel advisors to search for information using natural language speech, said Voss; TL also is looking to introduce speech searches on TL.com, where consumers are looking for a travel advisor to help them. “That’s in its infancy but it’s coming.”
And TL is working with several cruise suppliers to train Toby AI on the details of their individual offerings, McGillivray said.
- The only dark cloud has been the series of natural disasters—hurricanes and fires in Florida, California and North Carolina—that have affected the lives, homes and businesses of many travel advisors. Thanks to great partners who have stepped up—including Allianz Insurance, which made a six-figure donation, and AMAWaterways, which gave more than $200,000, Travel Leaders’s Family Bonds Foundation has been able to give away its first set of grants for those affected by the LA wildfires. The need is ongoing; “we have more requests than we can possibly work through,” so please donate here Home – Family Bonds Foundation.
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.
