From Crickets to Bookings: Ronda’s First Year as a Travel Advisor

Ronda started as a travel advisor this year. In this episode of The Travel Agents Academy Podcast she shares what failed in her first months, what’s working now, and what she’s trying next. These are the show notes, with the lessons I’d take from our conversation.

From military life to travel advisor

Ronda grew up in a military family. She crossed the US at least six times, lived in Japan and Guam, and traveled Europe. When she came home from South Korea, people kept asking how she found her ideas, so she decided to become the person who gets paid to plan them. She joined a host agency, then started looking for clients beyond friends and family.

What didn’t work

Ronda built a website and a Facebook page and ran her own ads. They got clicks, but nothing turned into a booking because they weren’t reaching the right people.

Next she paid a lead company about $100 a month for “luxury leads”. What she got was a name and an email address, never a phone number, often from someone who had clicked an ad for something unrelated. Some of the emails bounced.

That’s cold email marketing, and it’s very hard. You can’t sell a trip over email. Phone or a video call is where you build trust and actually sell, so if a lead source only gives you email addresses, expect to work it on volume and hope one pays off.

Finding a niche she loves

Her network was mostly military families, whose travel is often paid for or tied to an assignment, so she had to reach outside that bubble. Inside the Academy she started trying ideas built around what she’s passionate about.

Now she and her best friend are hosting small-group trips for other best friends: eight days in Italy in May for wine tasting, wineries and cooking classes, all inclusive except flights, and a Spain trip in the fall around Barcelona and the wine harvest.

A booth at a bridal expo

An ad for a large bridal expo in Seattle popped up in her feed, and she took a booth. The show vets its attendees with a survey, so the couples who come are looking to book vendors, not just browse. Vendors also get a share of the show’s lead list afterwards.

Her plan for the booth:

• Info cards that ask for their top three bucket-list destinations, their favorite trip, what went wrong on their last trip and why, and how they like to travel
• Packages for the couple, including a groom’s trip and a split trip where each group does its own thing before meeting for a final dinner and photo shoot
• A flyer for the parents: the kids are on their honeymoon, now it’s the parents’ turn

My advice for any show like this is to educate, not just pitch. Most couples know where they want to honeymoon. They don’t know whether to book a resort directly, use a booking site, take a cruise or work with an advisor, and some don’t know advisors still exist. Help them see what an advisor solves for them, so the question becomes which advisor, not whether to use one.

Following up after the show

Not everyone books at the booth. Keep emailing the lead list afterwards. Promotions have their place, but balance them with educational content: tips, trends and new ideas for their trip. Consistent education builds trust with people who don’t know you yet, and Ronda is starting a bridal newsletter the month after the show to do exactly that.

Marketing locally: wineries, flyers and meetups

For the Italy and Spain trips, Ronda is promoting through social media and going local too:

• Letters, flyers and a business card to 15 local wineries and wine shops, followed by a visit in person
• An offer to promote each winery in return, so it’s give and give
• Flyers with QR codes that go straight to each trip’s itinerary and sign-up page
• Community boards and the visitor center near her, plus local women’s meetup groups

She’s also considering a taste-of-Italy night at a local wine bar. If you host an event like that, charge for tickets rather than pouring free wine, or you’ll fill the room with people who came for the drinks, not the trip.

Charging a planning fee

Ronda charges a concierge fee. She skipped it on her very first booking because she was new and unsure, then started charging after a conversation with my business partner, Brian. Some trips get a flat fee; on others she gauges the client’s budget first.

She also learned not to give away her research too early. If you hand someone the full plan before they commit, you become their free search engine and they book it themselves. Give enough to show your expertise and earn their trust, not everything.

The personal touch

When her in-laws came home from a trip she booked, Ronda mailed them a handwritten thank-you note with two coffee gift cards and a few business cards to hand to friends in their retirement community. Small touches like that tell clients they matter and keep you in mind when their friends start planning.

Ronda’s struggle: time

Her biggest challenge is balancing a busy schedule with consistent follow-up. She admits she lost a couple of leads early on by not following through. Since then, the conversations she has every day, with people getting passport photos at her other job or flight crews shipping packages, have become a source of ideas: where are you going, and where would you go if you didn’t have to plan it? When several people struggle with the same destination, that’s a marketing angle you can take to market.