Brad Tolkin: 2027 Is Set Up to Be a “Spectacular Year” for Travel Advisors

When Brad Tolkin looks into his crystal ball for 2027, he sees blue skies, smooth sailing—and boatloads of happy travel advisors and leisure customers.  

“I’m excited, I’m really excited,” he told the attendees at the Dream Vacations/Cruise One conference, held this year onboard Royal Caribbean’s Star of the Seas, on Saturday.   

Tolkin, who’s co-CEO and COO of the franchise associations’ parent, World Travel Holdings, said that setting politics aside, the recent elections delivered just what the travel industry needed: the kind of “great clarity” about the future that keeps the markets humming and business booking.  

Now, “2027 is set up to be a spectacular year.”  

If there’s a blip on the horizon, though, it’s the potential headwinds blowing in from Europe. “We’re really energized about the opportunity and about growing our network,” Tolkin said. “But one thing that preys on my mind right now is that we need the rivers flowing in 2027.” 

The combination of low water in the rivers and political unrest in the streets hasn’t hurt the leisure business much so far. But “two years in a row, on top of the fact that there’s a lot more product, is just not healthy for the industry,” he told TMR. “This year the industry handled it well. But this was a one-off—and we just can’t have a two-off. The customer is not buying a bus tour.” 

A New Focus on Land

Even as the 1,000 or so attendees at the conference sailed the Caribbean, much of the talk at the sessions and among the panels of winners was about growing the land vacation side of the business. 

Like our host Royal Caribbean—a cruise company that just invested in the Sandals and Beaches all-inclusive resorts—Dream Vacations and CruiseOne also are eyeing terra firma as a growing destination for leisure travelers. (“We did $3 million in land 10 yrs ago, and now this division alone will do over a quarter billion,” Tolkin noted.) 

On a panel of top selling land agents, for example, Melissa Cohn said she has been focusing on selling pre and post tours on every cruise, and visiting more all-inclusive resorts in preparation for selling more of them.  

Spending a few extra days before or after her own river cruises, to see the sights and try a hotel or two, has helped build her business as a Europe FIT expert, she said.  

And then she thinks big. “I offer clients a preferred club room, a butler, a suite. Never be afraid to start with a higher category and a better experience.” 

Dream Vacations and Cruise One Updates

Internally, Dream Vacations and Cruise One have been focusing on the changing ways people find travel advisors, and new schema to push franchisees to the top of AI search engines. 

“We’re always looking to grow the network and the agents within it,” Debbie Fiorino told TMR. “We’re looking at ways to use the data we have to help us understand what makes our agents most successful, and what we can do from a training and engagement perspective to continue to elevate them.” 

The company is among the fastest growing in the industry and the top recommended franchise in leisure travel by Entrepreneur Magazine, Fiorino said, with 2,700 franchises (up 250 over last year)—and this year for the first time will break the $1 billion mark in travel sales.  

Interesting new programs from Dream Vacations and Cruise One include the Influencers and Content Creators Discount, where new advisors with 15,000 followers or more on social media are offered “highly discounted” rates on new franchises. And the 2027 events calendar will include a new six-week intensive Group Accelerator program with Stuart Cohen, a new Disney Summit and a new Sales Summit at AVA Cancun.  

On the marketing and technology side, the company has been adding AI-friendly schema to advisor websites, making it easier for AI search engines to understand each advisor’s specialties and for customers to connect to them. On the horizon, AI-search optimization will include blog content on websites and all custom landing pages.  

In addition, AI is being added to the Cruise Control CRM to give advisors greater flexibility in how they organize clients, bookings and daily priorities, and to read supplier booking confirmations and use that information to begin creating bookings. 

On the drawing board is an updated booking system that will make it easier for clients to navigate room, cabin, rate and promotion options. 

Tolkin summed it up by noting that four months after an infusion of cash from private equity firm Citation Capital, his new partners are “extraordinarily bright” and asking “great questions” about how to use the company’s wealth of data to grow business in 2027.  

Looking forward, he said, “demand for the leisure experience and the cruise experience are at an all-time high. I think we’re going to have a great cyber season.”