At Ensemble Horizons, the Case for Advisors Gets a Data Backbone

The opening session of Ensemble’s annual Horizons conference, which kicked off yesterday in Las Vegas, had the feel of an industry that has stopped hedging on whether it still matters. Over three hours of keynotes and partner presentations, the message was consistent: travel advisors outperform every other distribution channel in the market.

“We are not just the people clients call when something goes wrong,” Ensemble president and CEO Michael Johnson told the room. “That framing diminishes everything you do.” He then cited Phocuswright data showing Ensemble member agencies growing at 11% against a broader market up 3%, and CLIA research finding that 73% of cruisers say advisors meaningfully influence their decision to cruise. “Your clients are with you because they trust you. And in uncertain times, trust is the most valuable currency there is.”

The research perspective came from Skift’s head of research, Seth Borko, whose presentation showed that 60% of North American travelers intend to spend more on travel in 2026 than they did in 2025. Luxury is the industry’s primary growth driver, and the data on advisors’ relevance to that segment is striking—luxury travelers use advisors at twice the rate of average travelers, Borko said. When asked which sources they trust most for travel planning, they rank advisors first, above family and friends.

Borko’s most pointed remarks were about AI. Usage of AI planning tools has doubled in a single year, he noted, and adoption is highest among high-income travelers, who are the exact clients advisors most want. But the technology has a structural weakness: it pulls from the wisdom of crowds, which tends to lead travelers directly into crowds. “Generic advice,” he said, “is the ultimate betrayal in a world of AI.” His framing—that curation is now the full product for luxury travelers, not a feature—gave advisors a vocabulary for articulating their value that goes well beyond “we help when things go wrong.”

On the product side, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings used the stage to make news. NCL announced the elimination of non-commissionable fees effective this year, effectively closing the gap between published and effective commission rates, a change chief sales officer John Chernesky described as long overdue. Oceania followed immediately, announcing NCFs would be eliminated across 2028 and 2029 sailings as well. 

Regent Seven Seas added details on Seven Seas Prestige, its new first-in-class ship, delivering this September. The vessel will be 40% larger than the Explorer class but carry only 10% more guests. The flagship Skyview Suite, at just under 9,000 square feet and priced at roughly $25,000 per night, sold 10 units within the first hour of availability on inaugural sailings.

AmaWaterways announced its fleet will grow to more than 50 ships by 2032, including a new Colombia itinerary cruising between Barranquilla and Cartagena, a second ship on the Mekong, and expanded African safari programming on the Chobe River. The safari product, which features just 28 guests and a schedule dictated by animal movement rather than port timetables, shows exactly the kind of itinerary that’s difficult to find and impossible to replicate with a search engine.

Delta rounded out the morning with a presentation on customer experience philosophy that resonated more as context than sales pitch: when a flight disruption is communicated proactively and clearly, their Net Promoter Score among affected passengers swings from -47 to +50. 

The airline didn’t need to make the parallel between advisor communication and the airline’s communication explicit. It fit neatly into the morning’s central argument: that the human on the other end of the phone is still the thing no algorithm has figured out how to replace.