Meet at the Summits in September!

More than 10 years ago, in September 2014 to be exact, we launched Agent@Home, the only monthly magazine focused on serving home-based travel agent professionals. At the time we were pioneers in a segment of the market that was still not fully embraced by travel suppliers or our media competitors.

Nowadays, home-based travel agents represent at least half of the travel agency market and probably more than that. Travel suppliers also have eagerly embraced home-based travel agent professionals because they realize where the market is heading—to a place where majority of all agents will work from home or remotely.

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Fortunately for us, our competitors have not successfully produced their own publications targeting the home-based agent market. And for years we supported a number of other travel industry shows targeting home-based travel professionals, though we never had our own events except virtual shows. Now that is about to change.

Agent@Home Travel Summit is a unique event that will take place for four days each on two coasts this September. The first summit will be held on the West Coast in Long Beach, Calif., Sept. 15-18, and the second on the East Coast in Atlantic City, N.J., Sept. 29-Oct. 2, 2015. For more information or to register for one or both events, click on Agent@Home Travel Summit.

Both events bring Agent@Home, once again the only magazine that caters to home-based travel professionals and entrepreneurs, to life. They offer extensive educational programming covering the top issues facing the travel agency trade today. The conference agenda features instructional programs and seminars covering relevant topics including in-depth product and destination information, selling techniques, marketing and sales strategies, social media and web marketing, and more.

We also will feature some of the best speakers and most interesting personalities in travel today. These are travel executives who are not just going to promote their products, but who can provide valuable advice and guidance on how to better sell travel in general. And I can say that having been to my share of travel industry events over the past 25 years.

On the West Coast in Long Beach, Andy Stuart, the newly named president and chief operating officer for Norwegian Cruise Line, will be a featured keynote speaker. Andy has been a great and popular speaker among travel agents even in his days as a top sales executive for Norwegian. But now, as president, he’ll no doubt have a lot more to say. He’ll deliver a keynote address, but then sit down to be interviewed by me or travAlliancemedia CEO Mark Murphy (we’re flipping a coin on that) and then he’ll be available for questions from the audience.

Indeed, that’s the format we are introducing for all our keynote speakers, so our show attendees can really get to know these executives and benefit from their experience and their career stories. Mark and I will be interviewing all of our keynote speakers and offering the audience the chance to interact with them.

Also on the West Coast in Long Beach, we’ll feature Paul Wiseman, president of Trafalgar, as another keynote speaker. If you’ve seen Paul appear at other events in the past you’ll know he’s as creative and provocative speaker as any in the business. He also is very funny and plays a mean rock guitar as well (though we might not see that up on stage).

More to the point, Paul has been instrumental in changing the image of escorted tours, now often called guided vacations, during his long career in the tour business. And better yet, he’ll not only appear on the West Coast, but he’s agreed to be in Atlantic City as well.

For our East Coast show in Atlantic City, you’ll hear from Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line, who will be the kick-off keynoter for the event. Christine served for four years as president and CEO of Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA). Prior to that she spent 10 years at Maritz Travel Company where she served six years as president and CEO. She will share her career journey that took her from being a corporate travel agent to now leading the world’s largest cruise line, overseeing 43,000 employees and 24 cruise ships.

Also at the East Coast show as a keynoter will be Mike Going, president of Funjet Vacations. A travel industry veteran of over 19 years, Mike is considered to be one of the most dynamic, engaging and effective speakers in the industry and will focus on helping travel agents better sell packaged vacations and travel in general.

We’ll be announcing other top speakers this month to round out what we hope to be an extremely enticing program that our home-based travel agent attendees will not only enjoy but also profit from, so they can better build their travel businesses. And, of course, we will also feature a full range of workshops and seminars covering a wide variety of topics, but focused on helping our travel agent attendees better sell, market and profit from travel products. Plus we will also stage a unique Town Hall event at the end of both shows where top travel supplier executives and travel agents can have an interactive discussion on the top issues affecting the industry today.

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

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