The very first Agent@Home Travel Summit, set for Sept. 15-18, in Long Beach, Calif., will feature Jack Richards, president and CEO of Pleasant Holidays, as a keynote speaker. Richards (pictured above) oversees one of the largest privately owned travel companies in the U.S.

In his keynote address, Richards will focus on helping travel agents better sell packaged vacations to a wide variety of destinations in the U.S. and around the world. He also will be interviewed and will take questions from the audience in a highly interactive session.

Since joining Westlake Village, Calif.-based Pleasant Holidays in 2007, Richards has focused on expanding well beyond the company’s strength in away to launch travel package programs to the Caribbean, Europe, Central America, U.S. Cities, and Canada, as well as European and American river cruises vacations. Pleasant Holidays is the number one tour operator in the U.S. to Hawaii and Tahiti.

Richards has spent his entire career in the travel industry, having served in senior executive posts at Hotels.com and Expedia, Inc., America West Vacations and Adventure Tours USA. He served on the board of directors of the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau from 2008 to 2014, and has been a member of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Leisure Travel Advisory Board since 2008.

Other keynote speakers and top panelists at the Agent@Home Travel Summit in Long Beach will include Paul Wiseman, president of Trafalgar; Vicki Freed, senior vice president of sales and trade support and service at Royal Caribbean International; Scott Koepf, senior vice president of sales at Avoya Travel; Alex Pinelo, vice president-key accounts at Norwegian Cruise Line; and Mark Murphy, president and CEO of travAlliancemedia, which publishes Agent@Home magazine, Vacation Agent magazine and TravelPulse.com.

Keynote speakers and top panelists at the companion Agent@Home Travel Summit in Atlantic City, N.J., set for Sept. 30-Oct. 2, will include Paul Wiseman, president of Trafalgar; Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line; Mike Going, president of Funjet Vacations; Scott Koepf, senior vice president of Avoya Travel; Steve Gorga, president of Exclusive Group Travel; Ron Fenska, vice president of Intrepid Travel Group; and Mark Murphy, president and CEO of travAlliancemedia.

Agent@Home Travel Summits, the first of their kind, provide a forum where home-based travel agents, the readers of Agent@Home magazine, can network, learn how to improve their business, and discover more about travel industry products and services. Twin summits are scheduled in Long Beach, Calif., Sept. 15-18, and Atlantic City, N.J., Sept. 29-Oct. 2.

The summits bring Agent@Home, the only magazine that caters to home-based travel professionals and entrepreneurs, to life by offering extensive educational programming covering the top issues facing the travel agency trade today. Agent@Home is a sister publication to TravelPulse.com.

For more information or to register, click on Agent@Home Travel Summit. Travel suppliers interested in exhibiting and/or speaking at either event should contact the show organizer, Paul Muir, at pmuir@mse-management.com.