It takes three years for travel advisors to hit their highest income potential—and about a third of that comes from fees. Indeed, in 2022, travel advisors who charge fees earned almost twice as much as those who did not.
That’s just one of the interesting findings of The Hosted Travel Advisor Report, a study of 1,492 travel advisors released last week by Host Agency Reviews. The respondents averaged six years of experience in the industry, with an average annual income of $37,440 on annual sales of $319,605 in 2021. Eight out of 10 were female, and 49% charged fees (21% charged service fees, 9% charged consultation fees and 19% charged both.
Fees are clearly gaining in popularity, and for good reason. Among travel advisors who charged fees, these accounted for 30% of their income in 2021—up from 11% in 2019. Two-thirds of the most experienced advisors, those in the business more than 15 years, charged fees, and another two-thirds of those who did not charge fees this year said they plan to charge in 2023.
Also interesting were the demographic data in the report. While 63% of respondents to the 2020 survey, conducted before the coronavirus outbreak, reported working full time, only 46% did so in the 2022 survey.
Corporate agents earned the most, averaging $65,309, followed by luxury agents at $49,113, honeymoon specialists at $44,151 and generalists at $31,926.
Happily, 93% of respondents said if they had it all to do again, they’d still opt to become travel advisors.
Perhaps that’s because of the best benefit: the average advisor had visited 73 countries.
For the full survey, go to 2022 Hosted Travel Advisor Report | Host Agency Reviews – Google Drive.
