“It’s About Time”: EF World Journeys Is Developing an Advisor Program

EF World Journeys has confirmed with Travel Market Report that the company is developing a travel advisor program for its three tour operator brands, EF Adventures, EF Go Ahead Tours, and EF Ultimate Break.

A division of EF Education First, EF World Journeys is a family of tour operator brands that specialize in experiential group travel. Each of its three brands is targeted to a different demographic: EF Go Ahead Tours is the general brand, EF Ultimate Break is for 18- to 35-year-olds, and EF Adventures, which was introduced in 2024, is for active travelers, offering itineraries built around hiking, trekking, and cycling.

Back in May, EF World Journeys attended the ASTA Conference in San Diego and shared its intentions to launch an advisor program. Since then, the company has been listening to feedback from trade on what support is needed and what policies and technology are required to best serve this community.

EF World Journeys told TMR that the company is “in the early phases” of developing a travel advisor program, and is “focusing on reaching out to the travel advisor community to understand what type of program meets their needs.” Ultimately, the goal is to become “a preferred partner to every travel agency, to offer travel advisors our EPIC tour experiences popular with travelers, and provide the best-in-class traveler support for these tours that travel advisors have told us they’ve been wanting to book for decades.”

TMR interviewed Heidi Durflinger, the CEO of EF World Journeys, to learn more about this initiative.

Why is EF World Journeys developing a travel advisor program?

Durflinger: The tour operator industry, inclusive of EF World Journeys, is growing as a sector within tourism overall. Since the pandemic, the resurgence of travel advisors and agencies has reinforced a broader trend we see across our own brands: consumers increasingly value human-centered guidance and expertise as they decide where to go and how to experience a destination. 

As EF World Journeys looks to further scale growth across all three of our tour operator brands (EF Go Ahead Tours, EF Adventures, and EF Ultimate Break), we believe that working with travel advisors can be one of several pathways towards our goal of connecting more travelers with cultures around the world.

What will the travel advisor program include? 

Durflinger: Travel advisors and/or host agencies can benefit from competitive commission across all three of our EF World Journeys products on over 250+ tours across the world.  We also offer advisors and agencies the ability to design customer trips, industry-leading free place benefits, dedicated traveler support, and more.

What is the timeline to launch the program?

Durflinger: We are in the process now of travel advisor recruitment and research. Travel advisors and travel agencies can book tours now across all three of our brands (and receive compensation), but our intention in the next several months is to officially launch with more well-defined processes, policies, and technology solutions designed with input from the industry.

What has the response been from the advisors EF has connected with?

Durflinger: So far so good! Many have said, “It’s about time!” We’ve heard for decades that travel advisors wanted to sell our tours and value our 24/7 traveler support. Beyond our warm welcome, we’re really focusing on reaching out to the travel advisor community to understand what type of program meets their needs — and welcome the opportunity to talk and listen. From processes to our technology solutions, our intention is to involve travel advisors in the building of this program so we can maintain a mutually beneficial relationship for the long term.

What is the opportunity here for advisors to get on the ground floor?

Durflinger: They just need to sign up! Expect we are in the early stages of onboarding travel advisors, but they will have access to competitive compensation and benefits when selling our tours across all three of our tour operator brands, starting now.

[Ed. note: travel advisors can sign up by following this link https://www.goaheadtours.com/travel-advisors]