With an acceptance rate of 16%, it’s harder to receive a hosted travel advisor spot at the Future Leaders in Travel Retreat — an event put on by the team at TravelAge West — than it is to get admitted to the University of California, Berkeley.
And similar to a college admissions officer, our event’s recruiter, Jacqueline Hurst, looks at various data points to guide her decisions, from awards and sales data to written responses and letters of recommendation.
Beyond that, Hurst is reading between the lines to find travel advisors with leadership qualities and a true passion for the industry and its future.
This is the magic of Future Leaders — which took place this year from Aug. 28 to Sept. 1 at Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos in Mexico. Over the course of several days, handpicked advisors and suppliers fed off each other’s energy during collaborative educational sessions and memorable events, setting the foundation for lifelong professional relationships.
The following five travel advisors represent the kind of talent that Future Leaders curates and cultivates. Here, they share their routes to becoming an advisor, and how they plan to elevate not only their own businesses, but the industry as a whole.
Marisa Costa: The Advisor’s Advisor
Advising Since: 2017. Projected 2022 Sales: $1,500,000.
Marisa Costa, founder of Amiko, began her journey in the travel industry nearly a dozen years ago as a tour operator before being recruited to the safari division of Protravel International, where she realized she was just one of a handful of millennials in the company. There, the CEO — the late Barry Liben — encouraged Costa to actualize her idea to target a much-needed next generation of advisors.
“In speaking with both existing agents and my recruits to find out where they were struggling, I realized training was the biggest barrier to building a successful business,” she said.
Marisa Costa, founder of Amiko, began travel advising in 2017 after creating a training program for travel agents.
Credit: 2022 Marisa CostaCosta’s solution — the Next initiative — was a six-week in-person training program covering all aspects of being a working advisor, from customer service and geography to the global distribution system and accounting.
“Eventually, I realized I too could be living the life I was promoting, so in 2017, I shut down the program to go out on my own as an independent contractor,” she said.
And while Costa has built a lucrative business as a high-touch advisor for high-net-worth clients, she has doubled down on her passion to help the next generation of advisors. Through her company and social media app, Amiko — also started in 2017 — she has built a community of likeminded advisors looking to each other for guidance and support. But, given her history, it’s clear that we’ll see more innovations from Costa in the years to come.
I’d like to impact the travel industry by continuing to support not only this new generation of advisors, but the next one and the one after that.
“I’d like to impact the travel industry by continuing to support not only this new generation of advisors, but the next one and the one after that,” she said. “If we want to continue nurturing new advisors, it’s crucial that we make the career more appealing.”
Michelle Gatewood: The Queen of Destination Weddings
Advising Since: 2021. Projected 2022 Sales: $1,000,000.
Few advisors can say that they hit the $1,000,000 sales mark in less than one year, but then again, there’s only one Michelle Gatewood. A Texas-based luxury travel advisor with Vagablonde Travel, Gatewood quickly honed in on her passion for destination weddings and working with brides. Gatewood’s current long-term goal is to become well known in the Texas area for destination wedding planning, with a team of family members, independent contractors and assistants behind her.
Michelle Gatewood has been a travel advisor for less than one year, but expects to sell $1,000,000 in destination weddings this year.
Credit: 2022 Michelle Gatewood“I started in July 2021, and by October 2021, I decided I would put all my focus into destination weddings,” she said. “In just a few short months I closed eight weddings and cannot wait to keep growing.”
Gatewood credits her success to working with top suppliers, staying hyper organized via spreadsheets and her customer relationship manager, and hitting the road (she is doing nine conferences and fam trips this year).
She has also earned recognition at her travel agency with two awards — for being a team player and the “rookie of the year” — as well as an award for shooting great social media footage on a fam trip.
The latter is not by accident. Gatewood started out her professional career in the photography industry.
“When my studio flooded, I became a social media influencer,” she said. “But I was traveling so much with my family that my followers were asking for my help. I finally thought there must be a way I can make money doing this.”
Julie Patterson: The “Wanderful” Brand Builder
Advising Since: 2020. Projected 2022 Sales: $450,000.
Before a chance encounter at a friend’s wedding — where a travel advisor tipped her off about the profession — Julie Patterson, the Michigan-based founder of Wanderfully Planned, had traveled to 50 countries and lived abroad in Ireland.
Julie Patterson became a travel advisor right before the pandemic, which allowed her to focus on branding and social media marketing.
Credit: 2022 Julie Patterson
Putting her master’s degree in public administration on the shelf, she followed her passion and began guiding trips in the Philippines, Canada, the U.S. and Sri Lanka.
“After my 2019 guiding season, I made a commitment to myself that I would transition into something else,” she said. “I knew I wanted to own my own business and I had the gift of planning and an unparalleled passion for travel.”
Following that fateful conversation with an agent in February 2020, Patterson was certain that advising was the career for her — and the fact that everyone stopped traveling only one month later managed to work out in her favor.
Patterson capitalized on having eight months of uninterrupted time to learn the basics of setting up a successful business. She took a 12-week social media strategy course, and one look at her Instagram account — full of outstanding original photography and destination information — shows that the work she put in is paying off. Half of her clients find her through her Instagram, and travel marketers use her as an example of what other advisors should be doing on the app.
Being a solopreneur is the start of a much larger plan.
It was also on Instagram, “after a lot of stalking,” where Patterson found her mentor, Whitney Shindelar of Undiscovered Sunsets. The two now share an assistant, which Patterson hopes will allow her to actualize some of the big dreams she already has for her business.
“Being a solopreneur is the start of a much larger plan,” she said. “I am also in the process of a slight shift, adding on a different element to Wanderfully Planned — one that is currently not being done by anyone else in the industry. But that is a secret for now. All I know is that it is going to be amazing.”
Brittany Shuford: The All-Inclusive All-Star
Advising Since: 2017. Projected Sales: $750,000.
Brittany Shuford, the Alabama-based owner of Darling Destinations LLC, says that she can start a conversation with anyone at any given time — a special trait that has helped her become a successful advisor and an approachable mentor.
Brittany Shuford is a top seller with numerous all-inclusive hotel brands.
Credit: 2022 Brittany ShufordAn advisor for five years, Shuford has ranked as a top three agent (out of 70,000) at her host agency, InteleTravel, for the last two years. On track to close more than $750,000 in sales this year, Shuford primarily sells all-inclusive hotel vacations in Mexico and the Caribbean (mostly Jamaica) and is a top supplier with American Airlines Vacations, AMR Collection and Vacation Express. About half of her clientele are traveling abroad for the first time.
“All-inclusives are a great start for people who want to travel outside of the country, but aren’t comfortable with having to leave their resort,” she said.
She has likewise been a friendly face for folks who have a desire to become a travel advisor. She began by mentoring 12 fellow independent contractors at InteleTravel, which recently empowered her to start her own agency where she is training and mentoring 20 associate advisors.
Shuford says that joining the travel industry has been life changing for her, which is a joy that she wants to share with others.
“Travel advising is an amazing career path, but it is important to have someone with knowledge guide you when starting out,” she said.
Cali Stein: The Peer Powerhouse
Advising Since: 2018. Projected Sales: $3,000,000.
Cali Stein, a New York-based luxury travel consultant for Embark Beyond, is one of the elite agency’s top sellers this summer, on track to close a whopping $3,000,000 this year. But Stein — who became an advisor after working in the nonprofit industry for eight years — did not choose the profession for the money.
Cali Stein has slowly raised her planning fee, which now accounts for 20% of her yearly income.
Credit: 2022 Cali Stein“I had a really crazy health scare a few years ago that completely flipped my life upside down,” she said. “After I recovered, I decided I could not remain working in my previous career that I really did not enjoy.”
So, Stein reached out to a former college acquaintance who was traveling the world, and asked her how she could do that too.
“I remember her specifically telling me that in my first couple of years I would make absolutely no money, and that most of the job is sitting behind a desk dealing with demanding clients, and that I would have to learn as I go with virtually no training,” she said. “I thought, ‘Sign me up, I can do this.’”
And do this, she has: The Europe-loving advisor has attracted a high-net-worth clientele — including her first celebrity client — and demands top-tier planning fees, which protect her time by making up 20% of her income. More confident as an advisor, she raised her fees in the last year to about $1,500 per trip (depending on the overall trip spend) — and believes that all advisors should be compensated for the many hours they put in.
“My fees did raise from last year for a couple of reasons,” she said. “I feel much more confident as an advisor and my value in what I can provide to clients, and also that the work has just gotten harder and more intricate — especially with last-minute requests.”
Stein recently brought on her first independent contractor, which has unlocked a whole new passion.
“I really love training, more than I ever thought that I would,” she said. “I have loved seeing [my IC] grow and become a powerhouse herself. I would like to have an impact in the travel industry by helping others succeed and feel fulfilled in their careers.”
