Travel Experts’ advisors are witnessing a “resurgence in the appreciation and use of travel advisors by consumers and the resulting boom in bookings and revenue,” the luxury host agency said.
“There is no doubt that the COVID pandemic had a devastating impact on the entire travel industry and particularly all travel advisors,” said Sharon Fake, Travel Experts’ executive director. “But the positive we have seen now is a greater understanding of the value of travel professionals – and our affiliates tell us that 2022 and now 2023 have resulted in a new world for them, resulting in increased business, more clients and new relationships with suppliers,” Fake said.
Travel Experts’ advisors agreed. “The biggest positive is that more people understand the value of working with a travel advisor and the assistance we provide when something goes sideways with their trip,” said Teresa Panel McCombs of TP McCombs Travel in Raleigh, N.C.
“I have several new clients that never worked with an advisor in the past, but now not only want help with planning the perfect trip, but also want an ‘actual person’ to be there to support them if there are issues.”
Furthermore, clients now understand the value of purchasing travel insurance. “All my clients are purchasing insurance now as everyone understands how important it is to have travel insurance these days,” McCombs said. “They also understand why I keep pushing longer connections for their flights. Now if they have a delay, it's fine because I advised them to do a two-hour connection instead of the 35 minutes connection they saw on the airline’s website.”
Clients also appreciate the way in which Travel Experts’ advisors advocated for them during the pandemic.
“During the pandemic we got ‘free PhDs’ in crisis management and learned to solve problems we did not even know existed,” said Laura Madrid of Atlanta-based Resort to Laura Madrid. “Those of us who stood by our clients and continued to help them proved ourselves to be indispensable. We ignited our clients to travel now, travel more, travel further and to not wait to check off their bucket list.”
With suppliers being stretched to their limits to sate demand, advisors have worked toward forging new relationships.
“Emerging from the pandemic, advisors often had challenges with longer than normal turnaround times for proposals/pricing from tour companies,” said Eileen Anderson of Journeys Afar in Raleigh, N.C.
“With formerly reliable DMCs unable to meet incoming requests promptly, we had to get creative in establishing new partnerships, often with untested operators. For me, this fresh start has been enormously rewarding. I now have multiple new successful European, South American and U.S. business contacts who I otherwise never would have reached out to.”
In the final analysis, few if any would argue that the pandemic served to reenergize client’ desire travel. “I refer to the post-COVID surge as ‘The COVID Exodus,’ which has created an unprecedented level of travel requests and has undoubtedly been positive in the form of new business, clients and increased profits,” said Kim Shott of St. Charles, Minn.-based Adventures Beyond Borders. The pandemic lockdown inspired individuals to yearn for experiences and destinations initially considered as ‘doing someday’ in the future.”
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