First in a series on the influx of untrained newcomers to the industry

“I am looking to join a host agency and feeling a bit overwhelmed,” reads a recent Facebook post. “I am looking for a smaller agency that is personable, honest, and helps you reach your goals. That is either low-cost or free. Sells cruise lines as well as Disney, all-inclusives, and more. Offers CLIA. High commission split and no requirements on how much you sell.” Signed, Anonymous.

We’ve all seen posts like that and cringed. And last week, Angela Hughes addressed it in an open letter to the industry—and to those looking to enter it—that I thought was worth sharing Read the rest of this entry »

Travel Leaders Network advisors will soon be getting a travel-oriented version of  Artificial Intelligence, thanks to a new collaboration with Travel Research Online (TRO).

Travel Leaders’ parent company, Internova Travel Group, is a “big believer that Artificial Intelligence can be helpful when creating marketing materials and can improve efficiencies for members so they can concentrate on selling and serving clients,” Internova’s chief partner marketing officer Stephen McGillivray said in a press release announcing the partnership.

While nothing will ever replace the human expertise of travel advisors, AI can streamline work and help advisors run their agencies, McGillivray said. “We’re always looking for ways to innovate, and this tool does exactly that.”

An industry first, Travel Research Online’s “TobyAI” is a revolutionary artificial intelligence engine TRO designed specifically to support travel advisors. It allows travel advisors to easily craft itineraries, draft bios for agent profiles, compose letters and emails for clients, create engaging social media posts, and generate travel images through DALL-E 3.

“TobyAI is my new best friend,” said Debbie Sebastian, a Travel Leaders Network member who has been beta-testing the product. “TobyAI can take care of tedious tasks and frees me up to spend time on building my business. As a travel advisor, it is my role to build rapport with clients, understand their unique preferences, and provide thoughtful recommendations.”

Using TobyAI enables travel advisors to spend more quality time with clients and access resources to create custom travel experiences, she said.

While TobyAI rolls out across the 5,700 Travel Leaders travel agency locations across the United States and Canada in the next few weeks, Voyager Social, the TRO division behind Toby, trained three Large Language Models supporting the artificial intelligence resident in the system in the travel industry. TRO’s artificial intelligence engineering team is headed by Ryan Earls.

TRO president Richard Earls says the company is already working to expand its capabilities and integrate new features that will further streamline the travel advisors’ daily workflow.

Watch for updates on the technology and the people behind it here on TRO.

“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” -Dalai Lama

In many ways, Thanksgiving is the greatest of holidays, a reminder of the debt of gratitude we owe to everyone and everything around us.  It is always tempting to magnify our losses and minimize the ordinary, daily miracle.  We long for big, outrageous fortunes and forget the small, mundane but truly astonishing gifts.  One day of the year, however,  is a reminder to contemplate the undeniably interdependent nature of our existence.  How amazingly special is it when a client takes the time and effort to say “Thanks”?  Being on the receiving or giving end of gratitude is a pretty special thing. Especially now.

Everything is connected. We don’t have to look far to find people and institutions deserving of our thanks. Every success we enjoy, every small achievement, is the result of an interplay of grace and circumstance.

Read the rest of this entry »

WeTravel, a booking and payment platform, has recently released a Where to Go 2024 list outlining hot spots in travel for 2024. They’ve based the suggestions on bookings through the WeTravel platform. London, Ghana, Paris, and more. These recommendations are complete with popular activities from cruises to festivals, and museums to nature. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

It’s a new destination and a new kind of resort for Club Med, which will be hunting for big-spending tourist game in South Africa. In 2026, it will open its first resort there—plus an accompanying luxury Game Lodge that offers a Club Med-branded luxury safari experience. And in another new tack, there’s even the very first Club Med Surf Club.

The beachside Club Med Tinley will be in Tinley Manor, an area known for its Bottlenose dolphins, on the Dolphin Coast of KwaZulu-Natal. It’s a lesser-known province for tourists, known for its warm climate and stunning white-sand beaches. The surf-lifestyle themed property will include 342 rooms, 64 suites, and a convention center.

Guests also will have the opportunity to go on a Big Game safari in Northern Natal, based in the new 80-room luxury lodge Club Med is building, a 3.5-hour drive or 40-minute flight away.

Club Med Tinley will feature design, entertainment and food and beverages inspired by the location, climate, and cultures of Southern Africa, in both Premium rooms and Exclusive Collection accommodations.

Like all properties in the chain, it will offer family activities, land and water sports, and a kid’s club with tailored facilities and certified staff, as well as the Surf School at Club Med. Wellness enthusiasts will find an “indulgent spa,” fitness center, yoga school, and adult-only Zen pool and bar.

Club Med Tinley is a collaborative partnership between Club Med and the Collins Residential Consortium. Its sustainability efforts include a “Bye Bye Plastic Program,”  Green Globe sustainable tourism certification and eco-certified construction, and a partnership with Agrisud, a not-for-profit group designed to incorporate products from local businesses in its supply chain.

There is not a day gone by that I do not stop to think how lucky I am to have “stumbled” into a career that has allowed me to stay at five-star hotels, get paid to visit over 19 countries, meet many hundreds of nice people, take numerous cruises on both sea and river, and do it all by verbally sharing my experiences along the way.

Of course, there were more than a few downsides along the way. I remember one night in particular, sitting in my hotel room in Kansas City thinking to myself, “It is 7pm on a Tuesday and I am about to take the elevator down to the ballroom to talk to a room full of strangers. I’d rather be home with my wife. What am I doing here?”

A new proposed rule from the US Department of Labor is taking another look at the status of independent contractors—and making some in the travel agency channel nervous.

It’s the second time in two years the Department of Labor has revisited the way companies define “independent contractor.” Their goal, they say, is to put an end to the misclassification of workers—”a serious issue that denies workers’ rights and protections under federal labor standards, promotes wage theft, allows certain employers to gain an unfair advantage over law-abiding businesses, and hurts the economy at-large. Misclassification denies basic worker protections such as minimum wage and overtime pay and affects a wide range of workers in the home care, janitorial services, trucking, delivery, construction, personal services, and hospitality and restaurant industries, among others.”

What’s a reporter to do when she’s sailing Norwegian Prima with 3,000 travel-industry insiders, including iconic travel companies like American Express and Expedia? Why, ask a couple of them to sit down and chat about what’s new in 2023, of course.

Making headlines while we were cruising, Signature Travel Network announced the addition of Cruise Planners, which has been looking for a home since American Express announced it will be ending its representative network at the end of 2022.

And while I was I was on the subject of franchisees, I couldn’t resist reaching out to Expedia Cruises, whose CEO sat with me in Prima’s beautiful Haven area to share some thoughts on the state of the industry.

Part 1 of 2 on what travel advisors say is the biggest issue in the industry. Follow us next week for Part 2, as suppliers respond.

Angela Hughes is feeling lucky that her $2 million in personal annual sales allows her to hire a team of assistants. She uses them to hold the phone for her—often for hours at a clip—when she needs to call a supplier.

“Right now I’m trying to close a group of 50 for 2023—but I can’t get any space, and we have four-hour wait times to boot,” she says. “So I pay an assistant to sit on hold all day every day. It helps me earn a lot more revenue. But I can’t get over the inefficiency of the tour companies that makes it necessary.”

Hughes is passionate on the subject these days, she says. “I’m only using suppliers who help us—and if that means I have to move away from preferred suppliers, so be it. I’m moving all my tour clients over to Globus because they answer quickly. I dread that I ever booked a group to Club Med—I waited six hours on the phone one day, and then my client Read the rest of this entry »

If there is any truth to the belief that a good story is both entertaining and memorable, you are about to enjoy the information in my columns for the next few months. I am about to share with you my personal experiences that come equipped with some valuable lessons.

The first of these lessons come to you from 2500 feet above sea level. It was during my check ride, which requires a passing grade while flying alongside an FAA flight inspector. I was in the left seat of a Cessna 152 and I felt I was prepared for the “exam.” I read the books, practiced my landings, and Read the rest of this entry »

Sheila Folk is an experienced travel business owner with an impressive history of working in the leisure, travel, and tourism industry. She grew her travel agency to $8M in two years by creating and implementing a broad range of solutions she needed (but that were not available in the marketplace) to make her business a success. Sheila’s new company, Travel Industry Solutions, has now brought her contracts, tools, guides, and scripts to the entire industry.

Throughout her career, Sheila has demonstrated strong professional skills and expertise in management, strategic planning, and business development; new program and product development, branding, budgeting, and positioning; and negotiation, sales, and corporate communications. She has extensive, hands-on experience in all phases of B2B management, from marketing to establishing protocols for start-up firms. Her big-picture vision to establish and achieve corporate goals has led to triple digit growth, year after year. Before starting her own companies, she held such positions as director of business operations at a global branding company and assistant vice president of marketing at an international professional association.

Read the rest of this entry »

“All Indications Point Toward a Banner Year For Travel Professionals According to James T. Bigelow”

How do you feel after reading this good news? How do you feel after reading any favorable forecast depicting a promising future?

You don’t know the writer, and he or she doesn’t know you. Yet, I am quite certain that you are feeling better about your travel business knowing a bright light at the end of the tunnel is being forecasted.

Things are looking up, according to some person known as an “authority.” In this case, his name is James T. Bigelow. Read the rest of this entry »

The travel industry has long been a leader in environmental protection, because it’s an industry that has a major stake in preserving the environment. As the environment is degraded, the tourism product is destroyed. Every year that terrible disaster called climate change gets more in your face.

The acceleration of extreme weather events in recent years has made believers out of many who previously stood on the sidelines. Climate change is real, and very serious. It’s not an exaggeration to talk of it as an “existential crisis” for life on earth, at least for the kinds of life human beings care for.

So, what are we supposed to do? Read the rest of this entry »