I love a good idea for growing your travel business—and this week I came across two. I was doing what I like to do best, talking to smart travel advisors, this time at the Signature annual conference in Las Vegas. I’m working on a story about what advisors are planning to do differently in 2025, so I’ve been asking attendees here what they’re up to.

I’ll include a few of those stories in a future column. But the one I heard from Amy Westerman and Dave Hoffman, of The Curated Travel Collection, was so good it deserves a story all its own. And the tips on growing your Facebook ranking made me want to marry AI guru Kha Ly so I could have his tech support 24 x 7.

Like all the best stories, Amy and Dave’s begins in a bar, where Amy got to chatting and “swapping stories” with another customer, as travel advisors are wont to do Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve never met a cruise I didn’t like. On a yacht that holds 35 or a megaship with 6,000, shaking across the Drake to Antarctica or drifting through the Caribbean, I’m happy to eat chicken and salad if the pickings are slim, or sit by the pool with a book if there’s nothing to do. As long as there’s sea air, a balcony and a cup of coffee, I’m in.

I was fine with ignoring the mixed reviews I’ve heard and read about MSC, which range from five-star raves to absolute pans, from both travel advisors I trust and posts on social media. I wanted to give MSC a try and see for myself. So we booked a quick five-night Caribbean trip out of Port Canaveral and brought along a couple of friends for a long weekend in the sun.

(Of course, we know there are two sides to every story. This is the “con” side. For the many reasons some travel advisors do choose to sell air, see “Earning an Extra $50K: Travel Advisors Who Sell Air Say It’s Worth the Effort | Travel Research Online.”)

Liability issues. Time wasted. Late night calls. And the new DOT ruling about refunds that takes effect this week just adds one more reason to the litany of why many travel advisors hate to sell airline tickets.

“Selling air? Don’t.” That’s the succinct advice from Rich Greenway, owner of Greenway Travel Group-Dream Vacations. And he is not alone. Read the rest of this entry »

Even in an AI world, competition for really smart, knowledgeable and experienced travel advisors is stiffer than ever—not just among high-end customers but apparently among host agencies as well. At its annual conference last week, Avoya Travel Network announced upgrades to the commissions it will be paying its independent advisors (IAs)—and a $5,000 sign-on bonus to newcomers bringing in a book of business of their own.

Avoya traditionally has paid its advisors 30% of the commission on bookings obtained through its Avoya Live lead program, or 80% on bookings of their personal customers. Last year, it began testing an Elite 100 program that raised commissions with preferred suppliers to 100% on bookings of personal clients. Read the rest of this entry »

Fall is the best season for travel writers, filled with events featuring travel advisors and suppliers offering up great ideas for the new year. I’ve been to a few in the past couple of weeks, in person and online, at beautiful resorts and high-end Manhattan restaurants, with hurricanes blowing or bright fall colors shining in the sunshine. Here’s some of what I learned.

The simplest to attend was Rita Perez’s insightful “Prep for Wave Week” podcast, offering up insider tips on running a travel business. I listened to two.

Be they husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, or sisters and brothers, more and more travel advisors are finding there’s no better new hire than a member of your very own family. When you need a helping hand or a travel buddy—and when you consider a succession plan—many say home is the best place to start looking.

(Heads up: Of course we know there are two sides to every story. This is the “pro” side. Stay tuned next week for the “con.”)

When your niche is entertainment travel and your clients are ultra-high-net-worth, there’s no option but to sell air, says Ted Bradpiece. And he doesn’t really mind. It’s just another call or two a month he has to take late at night or on the weekend—and it pays as much as many travel advisors earn in a year.

Smart travel advisors know which questions to ask, and who to ask them to. But even smarter ones, it seems, attend the kinds of events that teach you answers to questions you didn’t even know you should be asking.

That’s just the kind of conference that Nexion Travel Network hosted this month in New Orleans. It’s possible that the hurricane winds outside brought people closer together but, honestly, I think it’s just the Nexion ethos that had so many smart travel advisors offering so many great tips at CoNexion 2024. Read the rest of this entry »

“A travel advisor who doesn’t travel is like a chef who doesn’t eat,” they say—and the same goes for a travel writer. So despite a family of nervous moms and four kids, every August we schlep our kids and grandkids on a family vacation. We love to have the whole clan together, and it’s always revealing to see things through the perspective of first-timers.

A story on Forbes.com has travel advisors abuzz over an old rule in Mexico travel that many never knew existed: Inbound travelers may bring in one electronic device—but pay a heavy tax if they are caught bringing in two. So if you need a MacBook Pro for work, forget the iPad for watching movies. You could end up coughing up 3,690 Mexican pesos, or about US$190.

Mexico allows tourists to bring in “two cameras or camcorders and camera gear; three cellphones or other wireless devices; one GPS; one electronic organizer; one laptop, notebook, omnibook, or other portable computing device; one portable copier or printer; one CD burner and one portable overhead projector and its accessories duty-free (What objects can I bring in my luggage to Mexico? (sre.gob.mx), but visitors must declare—and pay tax—on items above the limit. Read the rest of this entry »

Third in a series about how travel advisors are planning for the future. For more, see A Tale of Three Succession Plans | Travel Research Online and Succession Planning Has Agency Owners Dreaming of a Different Kind of Life | Travel Research Online

Even after 32 years in the business, Vickie Everhart is not yet ready to retire. But after her father succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease and her mom had a stroke, she got to thinking about what would happen to her business—and her customers—if she should fall ill.

Revelry travel and legacy travel. Silver bullet wellness and mood boarding. XZ beta travel, F-It Lists and Coolcations.

Are you keeping up with the new vocabulary of travel? The voice of luxury is awash in new buzzwords, it seems. And they all are pointing to the same good news. Luxury travel advisors are having a moment; luxury sales are soaring; and the most well-known global luxury consortia, Virtuoso, is feeling the love.

(Second in a three-part series on smart succession plans. For part one, see A Tale of Three Succession Plans | Travel Research Online. Stay tuned for Part 3.)

When you’ve been in the travel business all your life and you’re getting tired of the 60-hour weeks, it’s tempting to just throw up your hands, sell your client list to a friend and say “enough.” But many travel advisors are hoping to do more than that—to keep some cash flow coming in, to leave a legacy for their children Read the rest of this entry »

Sixteen months into dealing with Manhattan Probate Court about an inheritance without the proper paperwork, I am somewhat obsessed on the subject of succession planning—and so of course I’ve been talking to travel advisors about it.  Read the rest of this entry »

There’s more to Mexico than Cancun—and our neighbor to the south is counting on travel advisors to spread the word about its abundant luxury, adventure, cultural, and family travel opportunities. To help them along, 200 or so travel advisors showed up for CCRA’s PowerSolutions conference in Jersey City last week to hear about new options, like the jaw-dropping Copper Canyon (25,000 square miles, four times the size of the Grand Canyon) and the new lines on the Mayan Railroad, many of which are aimed at high-end travelers. Read the rest of this entry »

Reaching—and keeping—high net worth customers is all about developing personal relationships–among you, them, the people with whom they are traveling and the luxury travel suppliers with whom you all interact.

That theme was repeated over and over again by the tony Manhattan crowd at Travel + Leisure’s “The World’s Best Summit” in Manhattan last week. Among the speakers from luxury travel companies like Hyatt and Six Senses and Hurtigruten, my favorite was Embark Beyond founder Jack Ezon, representing the luxury travel advisor community. Ezon said selling luxury is about offering customers access in the most creative of ways, bonding your clients and their guests over shared experiences that will last a lifetime. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re still among the travel advisors who say “I don’t sell cruise,” you might want to reconsider. The growing cadre of luxury cruise ships sailing to exotic and adventure-filled destinations offers new options for existing customers and lures for a new generation of young travelers—and above all, it can serve as a gateway to the lucrative expedition travel market.

That was just one interesting takeaway from one of my favorite trips so far this season, an Embark Beyond fam trip to Alaska on the new Silversea Nova that had a unique angle: Onboard were five top-selling luxury travel advisors who had never sold a cruise—or even sailed on one.

When Janet and Jeff Blackwell checked into Beaches Negril on June 26, no one was paying much attention to a tropical wave forming off the coast of Africa. Celebrating their 40th anniversary, they planned to spend six days in Negril with their two grown sons, their wives and three small children, and then recreate their honeymoon with some private time at Sandals Montego Bay.

As the winds picked up, from 35 mph to 135 to 165, and the storm turned west and headed across the Caribbean toward them, they did consider changing their flights home. But tickets were scarce Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s one thing I learned on my first-ever camping trip last week: There’s something kind of sexy about sleeping with your husband under a star-filled night sky, watching him wrestle a big rig across the vast prairie, recalling cowboy movies set beside soaring red cliffs.

But I digress. Let’s start at the beginning.

Our amazing adventure in Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon started with an email from Benoit Lafond, CEO and co-founder of Noovo, a Vegas-based company that builds carefully crafted high-end camper vans. (His mission, he says, is to build “homes on wheels that incorporate the luxury of European hotels and the design of tiny Parisian apartments.”)

It’s been three days of presentations on travel marketing—from defining your market to branding and using social media to creating raving fans—at the TravelPro Marketing Summit this week. And it’s no surprise that I’ve come away with a few good ideas I can’t wait to try out.

When experts talk about a subject they love, you can’t help but get excited. and this second online Travel Pro Summit is clearly a labor of love by travel advisor Tiffany Elberfeld and the speakers she recruited Read the rest of this entry »

It’s June, traditionally one of the slowest months in the travel business. But there’s never a dull moment when you own a small business—and many travel advisors report they have plenty of homework to do over their summer vacation.

At Boutique Travel Advisors, co-founder Angela Rice is trying to tackle what she sees as one of the biggest issues facing both travel agency owners and independent contractors: working so hard during Wave season, but then having to wait months to see the cash flow Read the rest of this entry »