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It’s been a record-breaking year in the travel industry—but as 2023 nears an end, travel advisors who sell the Middle East are wondering about the possible fallout of the Israel/Hamas War. Some already are feeling the pinch as suppliers shift itineraries, customers try unsuccessfully to cancel—and travel advisors and their commissions are caught in the middle. Again.

“I have been fighting with Regent since they announced my clients would not be going to Israel and Egypt—which was the whole reason for their trip—and put Greece in its place,” says Samantha Hamilton at Ultimate Vacations. “My clients have already been to Greece and have no desire to go back Read the rest of this entry »

Artificial intelligence can play chess or pass the bar in every state, and do well on every medical credentials exam. It can fill in the next word in a sentence for you, which makes it seem capable of thinking. It can locate a missing child in the universe of refugee camps. But there is one question it cannot answer: “What would make my customer happy?”

It’s got mountains and oceans, coral reefs and rain forests, mud baths and sulphur springs, and a drive-in volcano. There are affordable hotels with amazing views and well-known hospitality names like Sandals and Zoetry that hug the mountains and rest in the rainforests. While the weather is hot and the towns a little crowded, visitors will find an awful lot to love here—including “the most beautiful hotel room” and “the most beautiful spa” in the world. It’s easy to see why the French and the British fought over this island 14 times. Whether you are looking for the ultimate in privacy and luxury or an affordable, beautiful, romantic and flower-filled Caribbean getaway, you likely can find it on St. Lucia.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

We craft comprehensive marketing and business plans each year to foster growth and engagement. While various strategies such as travel nights, travel shows, advertising, direct mail, email campaigns, and Facebook ads have traditionally constituted the marketing arsenal, there’s an often underutilized weapon in the marketing plan – sponsorships. If you haven’t considered incorporating sponsorships into your marketing strategy, you should, and here’s why. Read the rest of this entry »

Award-winning luxury river cruise line AmaWaterways today announced details on a series of new combination cruises in Europe debuting in 2025, appealing to travelers’ desire for longer trips. The new “Grand” series of 14-night itineraries, including Grand Seine & Bordeaux, Grand Seine & Rhône and Grand Rhine & Dutch Canals, are attractively priced and include convenient transfers between rivers where applicable. By combining two popular 7-night sailings into one convenient itinerary, these three curated extended journeys invite travelers to immerse themselves in Read the rest of this entry »

In one of the most beautiful venues I’ve been to recently for a travel event, the Los Cabos Tourism Board last week launched a new promotion designed to “reinvent itself as a holistic wellness-forward destination and Mexico’s top destination for luxury wellness travel.”

On the 38th floor of the new Virgin Hotels in Manhattan, with a glorious sunset as a backdrop, the event emphasized the “personal fulfillment and overall wellness” that is possible in Los Cabos, thanks to its spas, gastronomy, sustainability, culture, community and hospitality.

With almost $2 million in sales within the first year of his travel business, Rick Ables feels like he “has the Avoya system down”—and he’s ready to move on.

His career in travel started when he was sitting in the hospital with a child on chemo. During that time he talked with a nurse about travel, and then about selling travel, and then about how the nurse was selling travel on the side through Avoya Travel. He was hooked.

For the past year, the proud owner of Nimble Travel LLC in Lindon, Utah, has been building his business almost entirely through four key suppliers—AmaWaterways, Oceania, Collette, and Globus/Avalon—and mostly with Avoya leads, on which he earns the standard 30% Avoya commission Read the rest of this entry »

There was so much good advice at the Avoya Million Dollar Expo in Seattle last week that I guess you just had to be there to absorb it all. But here are some highlights:

You don’t have a responsibility to tell your clients about commonly known issues like COVID, says travel attorney Mark Pestronk, but if you read in the trade press (where a client would not normally be) that a supplier is having financial problems, you do have a legal responsibility to advise your customers. Have them sign a disclaimer (there are several on his website, Law Offices of Mark Pestronk, P.C. – The Travel Law Office – Legal help for Corporate Travel – Online Travel Agencies – Home Based Independent Travel Contractors). And for heaven’s sake protect your assets from disgruntled clients and the IRS with an LLC. E&O insurance in most cases covers damages but not legal expenses, which can add up to $50,000 in a case that involves death or injury. Always sign contracts in the name of the LLC and not your own—and note that if you deduct travel expenses as a business expense, you are five times more likely to be audited if you file on Schedule C than if you file as an LLC.

Grow your business by creating a simple referral program of some kind. Reach out to your Pied Pipers and incentivize them to talk about you. And don’t forget to celebrate them, perhaps on a Facebook page for only your top customers. In any case, always send an email asking for feedback and for referrals when clients return from a trip. (Travel advisor Carri Kersten, of Carri Kersten Travel Design, told me that during Covid she raffled off a $10 gift certificate to a local business to anyone who shared her Facebook posts or tagged a friend. In return for an $80 expenditure over eight weeks, her followers quadrupled, from 500 to 2,100.)

Keep two questions top of mind when meeting with suppliers: Does my client base have synergy with your product? And, can you help me develop a client base that matches your product?

Celebrity’s new round of shorter Caribbean cruises that stop at Perfect Day in CocoCay offers travel advisors a great opportunity to try the ever-improving product. While you might not think of RCCL’s private island as a perfect fit for Celebrity clients, the itineraries included have seen a high number of immediate bookings as soon as they are announced.

Need a little inspiration? Envision how other people’s lives are better because you are living your dream, says keynote motivational speaker Lucia Onieva (Life and Relationship Coach | Lucia G Onieva | Life Aligned). Write down your dream and then “bring your people into your dream” by visualizing how it will positively your family and your customers.

Don’t overlook the value of selling air. Every single day travel advisors have to prove their value to their customers, and part of that proposition is having a conversation about air. Things will go wrong and you will have to be an advocate for your customers, but you can charge the customer and also retain them by being their airline and travel document advisor.

What’s a cruise line executive to do when sales are soaring, ships are full, and there’s just not much capacity left on existing itineraries? Well, if you’re Rudi Schreiner, AmaWaterways’ co-founder and godfather of river cruising, you just draw on your 50 years of experience and create new destinations and make your seasons longer.

Indeed, river cruising is hotter than ever—even in colder weather, the AmaWaterways co-owner believes. To keep up with the demand, AmaWaterways is extending a number of itineraries into new dates and new seasons—beginning on the Danube and Rhine rivers in February, 2024.

It’s fair to say that I have a love-hate relationship with the cities along the Danube. My Jewish family was granted equal rights here by Emperor Franz Josef I—and then forced to flee by the Nazis. When I hear German, I hear the sweet voice of my grandfathers speaking in the Yiddish dialect. But I give thanks that by 1920 they both had emigrated to New York.

I’m on a press trip on the AmaSonata, sailing the beautiful (but not blue) Danube. But Jim Augerinos told me he’s at the Signature Travel Network Owners Meeting, and would love to do an interview about Maui, from Maui, I said, let’s do it next week.

Jim said the need is immediate, and the people of Maui can’t wait another week. So I asked him if he would write something up and send it along. Here’s Jimmy’s moving reply: Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a new niche in the travel industry and its name is Taylor Swift, it seems.

With her concerts selling out at exorbitant prices in the United States, some Swifties are looking to the pop star’s European tour schedule—and reaching out to travel advisors to book them a trip around their ticket dates. Better still, budget seems to be only a minor issue.

“This whole concept of parents taking their teenagers to Taylor Swift concerts is an opportunity for travel advisors,” Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a complicated world out there and travel is getting more difficult. So it’s no surprise that the value of a professional travel advisor is on the rise.

Indeed, a new study from The Travel Institute shows the value of education for travel advisors. Those who are certified earn almost 24.3% more per year then those without any certification—and they book 26.5% more in annual sales, according to the Changing Face of Travel Agents 2023 survey.

When it comes to advanced training, travel advisors who have earned the Destination Specialist or Lifestyle Specialist designation from The Travel Institute have annual incomes averaging 17.8% more than those who have no industry certification, and 6% more than those with other certifications.

Beside formal training, the study noted, travel advisors stay current with what’s happening from supplier communications (87%); trade media (66%); and social media (65%).

A whopping 96% of travel advisors used Facebook, followed by 61% on Instagram; 34% on YouTube; 30% on Linked In; and 18% on TikTok.

Travel Institute president Diane Petras noted that advanced training of travel advisors benefits suppliers as well as clients. “As an industry, we’ve re-earned travelers’ trust in recent years and we need to continue to support quality agent education to ensure we keep it,” she said.

Looking forward, she noted that in 2024 travel advisors are expressing the most interest in courses involving destination knowledge (70%), followed by supplier products (63%).

The Travel Institute provides both free and for-purchase educational options for travel advisors at all levels, including new agent training, certification, specialization and destination courses, free webinars, and an unlimited, and continued learning program through the Premium Access online library.

Here’s what I learned on my family vacation this year: when you’re traveling with six senior citizens, one electric scooter, two nervous moms, four kids and two hard-working dads, a cruise to Bermuda from a drive-to port is a wonderful stress-free option. One hour-long Uber ride delivers you to the door with as much luggage as you require; the less mobile can rent an electric scooter; and if things go really wrong, it’s comforting to be in the British Empire. (More on that later. The point: stuff happens. Always take the travel insurance.) Read the rest of this entry »

I still hear many travel professionals complaining they don’t “make sales” from their website or their social media efforts. For some inexplicable reason, digital efforts like social media marketing take the brunt force of a lot of misplaced expectations. In a correctly understood marketing campaign, tactical sales is not primarily the role of social media marketing. Public relations doesn’t make “sales” either, but few would diminish its importance. Complaining about Facebook not making sales is like being upset at your cat for not playing fetch – it’s simply not his job. Read the rest of this entry »

A good politician is a listener, a networker, an organizer—and doesn’t that sound just like a good travel advisor? So perhaps it’s no surprise that, as an election year nears, some travel advisors are throwing their hats in the ring and putting their names on the ballot. From Jay Ellenby, who got his political experience at ASTA, to Nikki Miller in the small town of Portage, MI, to Mayor Magda Byrne of Lansdowne, PA, travel professionals are thinking their skills just might translate into this new arena. Read the rest of this entry »

When you get an email under the subject “In 5 to 10 years, forget southern Europe in summer,” you just have to read it.

Indeed, James Thornton makes some interesting—and timely—points in the message he sent me. “In 5 to 10 years, I think it will prove challenging to travel around southern Europe during July and August,” the Melbourne-based CEO of Intrepid Travel said. “Most people just won’t want to, it will be far too hot.”

Against the backdrop of heatwaves and fires in the Mediterranean countries, particularly in Athens and Rome, many tour operators are changing their itineraries, and travelers are planning more vacations in Read the rest of this entry »

On the Rochester Common in New Hampshire last week, 700 kids turned out for National Night Out, an event designed to build safer communities by “enhancing the relationship between neighbors and law enforcement.” They picked up new backpacks filled with school supplies and books to read, grabbed some barbecue for dinner, and watched a movie under the stars.

Perfectly in keeping with the nature of the event, the Rochester Night Out is a cooperative effort between two travel advisors—a former juvenile delinquent and the police officer who arrested him for petty thievery and drugs when he was 15 years old. Read the rest of this entry »

Carol Dimopoulos, the colorful CEO of Learning Journeys, recently returned from India. It was the latest of a dozen previous trips to India, but only the second to southern India. She came back super jazzed.

“They were happy to see foreign guests,” she said. “They believe the guest is God, you know. That’s their motto.”

Carol’s group in India received even more attention than they might have otherwise because foreign travelers are still somewhat rare in post-lockdown Southern India.

Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) today took delivery of Norwegian Viva, the second of six planned Prima class ships and the 19th ship in its growing fleet–and invited travel advisors to take part in the festivities.

“As part of our Partner’s First philosophy familiarizations trips, inaugurals and seminars are handled in multiple ways at Norwegian Cruise Line,” a spokesperson told TRO. “We highly encourage travel advisors to express interest via their local or national sales managers. Additionally, we host contests, webinars and giveaways on our Partners First Facebook Page where there can be an opportunity to win a trip.”

Like its sister, Norwegian Prima, which debuted in 2022, the 3,100-guest Viva sports a three-story speedway and an Indulge Food Hall, at which guests can order from 11 food-truck-style stations. It also has Ocean Boulevard, the wrap-around boardwalk, but its Concourse outdoor sculpture garden will have different art, and its Metropolitan Bar will add a 52-foot piece designed by contemporary British digital artist Dominic Harris.

Viva also will have a new show, Tim Burton’s Tony Award-nominated Beetlejuice, and a different game show, Press Your Luck.

Following her maiden voyage on August 10, 2023, Norwegian Viva will sail the Mediterranean and the Greek Isles. After the official christening in Miami on November 28, the ship will homeport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from December 2023 through March 2024, with calls to Tortola, British Virgin Islands; St. John’s, Antigua; Bridgetown, Barbados; Castries, St. Lucia; Philipsburg, St. Maarten; and St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands.