What the Agency Industry Is Doing to Address the Advisor Shortage

The travel agency and advisor industry is at a crossroads. Demand for their services has never been higher, but there simply aren’t enough advisors to handle it all.

According to The Travel Institute’s “The Changing Face of Travel Agents” 2023 study, more than one-third (35%) of travel agencies lost staff during the pandemic. Of those, 56% said they have not yet replaced the staff they lost.

It’s a trend being seen across the industry.

“While we took on new agencies and the overall number of advisors is up significantly for us, the number of advisors per agency was certainly down in January,” said Alex Sharpe, president and CEO of Signature Travel Network. “And it’s probably still down a little bit as they look to hire people.”

On top of having lost advisors, the overall agency community is aging. Of the advisors who are left, 66% are over the age of 50 (compared to 52% in 2018). On top of that, only 6% of advisors are under the age of 35, compared to 11% in 2018.

There’s no two ways about it, the advisor community needs more people, both those coming into the industry as a second career and those looking to spend their entire career as advisors.

“We can’t get them in fast enough,” said Kathryn Mazza-Burney, chief sales officer for TRAVELSAVERS. “We really can’t. Absolutely, it’s still a problem.”

Without bringing more advisors into the fold, the entire advisor community risks the inability to meet the demand that’s out there, Cory Hagopian, senior vice president of sales and partnerships for Virtuoso, told TMR.

Jackie Friedman, president of Nexion Travel Group, agreed.

“If we want to continue the trend of having consumers book with travel advisors, we have to be bringing in and developing new talent into the industry,” she said.

Another risk? If there aren’t enough advisors to meet traveler demand, consumers have no choice except to go direct.

“Look at the number of ships, look at everything. There’s more and more product coming out and we have to make sure that the trade is ideally growing faster than the direct channel,” Friedman added.

Additionally, Hagopian said, advisors are at risk of burning out.

“Either you take less business or you work harder,” he said. “And that has ramifications, too, in terms of health and wellbeing.”

Young and Experienced
The need for new advisors is not limited to those entering the workforce for the first time.

“Obviously it’s great to bring in younger people into the industry because we’re finding that younger people, for certain types of trips, want to work with a travel advisor and they ideally want to work with someone in their demographic,” Friedman said.

“But at the same time, people looking for encore careers that have that business experience may have connections they bring, that’s equally important,” she added.

“New to the industry does not mean young in the travel industry, which has become an attractive career option in recent years for people from all walks of life and at all stages of their careers…” said Diane Petras, CTIE, president of The Travel Institute. “As an industry, this is important for us to understand because we need to ensure we also have individuals in our talent pipeline who are open to a lifelong career in travel.”

Education at Forefront of Recruitment
For many travel agency industry organizations, education has been the main driver of recruitment.

“Quality education that gives young new agents the capabilities and confidence they need to dedicate themselves to an agent career and succeed is certainly a critical component for broader industry success,” said The Travel Institute’s Petras.

ASTA, in partnership with Norwegian Cruise Line, has focused on revamping its introductory “Becoming a Travel Advisor” training course. The Association has also made its comprehensive overview of what it means to be a travel advisor available for free on its website.

At the same time, some consortia are also focusing on education.

In 2022, TRAVELSAVERS and NEST parent company American Marketing Group (also the parent company of Travel Market Report) launched KORE, a new-to-industry training program.

The fully virtual course provides 16 modules of training on things like the art of selling, customer service, qualifying, finding a niche, agency financials, and more. At the end of the course, advisors must take a proctored Travel Agent Proficiency exam. Upon passing the exam, they earn credits towards their CTA certification from The Travel Institute.

The response to all these programs has been excellent.

In an average year, The Travel Institute trains some 2,000 new advisors through its TRIPKIT introductory training course. This year, it’s on track to train approximately 5,000 new advisors.

It’s a similarly story at ASTA. In past years, the Association only sold a few dozen Travel Advisor overviews a year. Since making it available for free, thousands of people have downloaded it.

At TRAVELSAVERS and NEST, since the first graduate completed the KORE program a little over a year ago, 94% of all graduates “are thriving in their new agency careers,” a TRAVELSAVERS spokesperson said.

Helping Agencies Find Advisors
Other agency groups, including Virtuoso and Dream Vacations, have put together programs to help agencies find advisors, whether as employees or independent contractors.

Late this spring, Virtuoso launched the Advisor Recruitment Program to help agencies bring more advisors onboard, either as employees or as ICs.

“We had heard over and over… within the network that there was a demand for qualified advisors,” Hagopian told TMR. “The agencies in our network want advisors that take it seriously, that are committed to growing their own business. We felt that there was an opportunity for us to help.”

With the Virtuoso Advisor Recruitment Program, agencies fill out a form indicating what they’re looking for in terms of additional help. Simultaneously, individuals who are interested in joining Virtuoso fill out an application. Then Virtuoso matches the applications with the positions available.

Agencies must have a comprehensive onboarding and training program in place to participate. If they don’t have such a program, they can commit to putting new advisors through Virtuoso’s in-house training academy instead.

“Time is one of the critical situations right now,” Hagopian said, adding there’s no time for agencies to waste with advisors who might not be the right fit. “It allows for more qualified advisors and speeds up the process for them [agencies] to get an advisor onboard, train them, and have them active in the network.”

Since the Virtuoso Advisor Recruitment Program launched, 33 U.S. agencies have opted in and 17 placements have been made.

Even more impressive, Hagopian pointed out, 69% of the people applying to the program were new to the industry.

(At Cruise Planners that number is even higher. Michelle Fee, founder and CEO, told TMR that 85% of franchisees the company has brought on board in recent years has been new to the industry.)

Dream Vacations launched a similar service helping franchisees find associates and independent contractors back in 2021. Since the launch, 725 associates have been paired with franchise owners.