NACTA Celebrates Its 30th Anniversary

The National Association for Career Travel Agents (NACTA) is turning 30 this year, and president Ann Chamberlin and her team are celebrating by opening new NACTA chapters nationwide and launching a new mobile-friendly site.

To kick off the festivities, NACTA in January relaunched its website to make it more mobile-friendly, more interactive, and more comprehensive. At the end of the year, NACTA will host a November event, celebrating its 30^th Anniversary on both land and sea.

Chamberlin feels that the 52 U.S. chapters and one in Ontario are crucial in growing the organization, allowing members to meet and bounce topics and ideas off one another, and to share information. This year NACTA added eight new chapters.

Also on the agenda for 2016, NACTA plans to team with ASTA for Legislative Day, working to improve the issues for independent agents and all agents within the industry. Some issues that concern NACTA members include issues fighting tax on gross sales and legislation passed on behalf of independent contractors.

NACTA’s 1,900 members represent 34 host agencies. They are split about 50/50 between hosted and fully independent agents, and have an average of 16 years of experience.

Now in her fourth year as president, Chamberlin has seen all sides of the travel industry. She spent 12 years at Holland America, and then moved to Virtuoso to pioneer its independent agent branch. Now, as president of NACTA, Chamberlin says she loves what she does, and sees the number of independent agents on the rise this year.

For 2016, Chamberlin says she sees the role of independent agents growing, in response to consumers’ focus on unique travel experiences. In a world of online technology and resources, human travel professionals can offer clients new and exciting trips rather than run-of-the-mill options.