On Winning: Three Dream Vacations/CruiseOne Top Advisors Share Strategies

You know you’ve made it when your Host agency has to make up a new award to honor you.

But really, it came as no big surprise when Dream Vacations/CruiseOne named their top seller of the year, and the winner was Jason Newquist’s agency, Cruises It, for the tenth consecutive time.

This time, they called it the “Top Sales Decade” Award.

While his sales are stronger than ever, though, Newquist’s business plan has changed quite a bit since he created the industry’s first walk-through cruise ship videos on YouTube 10 years ago. He’s still focused on selling cruises—and they still make up about 99% of his business, he told TMR.

Over the years, he’s expanded his audience through short-form videos on Facebook and other social media, and expanded his staff through an affiliate marketing program. Nowadays, he partners with about 80 content providers who pass along referrals from followers who are looking to book travel, in return for a share of the commissions.

In January Newquist will expand even further, launching a full-fledged Host agency called VacationsIt for independent agents. VacationsIt will provide a full training program and offer up leads, as well as live travel news broadcasts, in return for a $50 a month fee and a share of commissions, set on a sliding scale. 

Newquist himself also will be stepping out from behind the camera.

“I’ve always done voiceovers, but now I’m going to show my face,” he told TMR. “I’m going to get on more cruise ships, make more videos—and make them better.”

At $37 million in sales so far in 2026, Newquist expects to hit $42 or $43 million by the end of the year – up nearly 20% from $35 million in 2025.

Other Top Sellers Share Some Tips 

Newquist was one of the many honorees at the annual Cruise One/Dream Vacations conference, being held this week onboard Royal Caribbean’s Star of the Seas. Among them are Jessica Slater and Associates, winner of the awards for Franchise of the Year and Largest Group; and Gary Smith and Theresa Garaham’s Travel Perks, honored as Top Group, Top Luxury Cruise, and Top River Cruise Producer.

In her 26th year in business, Jessica Slater was aiming for $5 million in sales in 2026, but will end up about 20% higher, at $6 million, as her return clients move up into more luxury products like Explora Cruises and Silversea Cruises. Her cruise group business has been strong since the first one she hosted, a Spring Break trip for her kids and their friends on Norwegian Cruise Line that evolved into 147 people.

Her biggest group this year – the biggest she’s ever done – was her first full ship charter, on Virgin Voyages.

“I’ve done charters on river cruise ships in partnership with other agents,” she said, “and found it’s a crazy phenomenon. If you tell people you are going, they will go with you and bring their friends.”

This year’s award has inspired her to do even more in 2027.

“I don’t care what everyone else is doing but I’m very competitive with myself,” she said. “I’m crazy about my goals. If I’m $20,000 away from my goal at the end of the month, I’ll pull an all-nighter to get there.”

For next year, she’ll host a full Emerald yacht charter and a Georgia Bulldogs fan group’s “Set Sail before the Tailgate” for the Georgia/Florida game. And in 2028 she’ll host a full charter on AmaWaterways.  

 “What I’m doing is working,” she said. “I typically host one cruise a year, and the groups just create themselves.”

At Travel Perks, meanwhile, Gary Smith and Theresa Graham won 11 awards in total, the biggest being top river and luxury sales for the third year in a row. In all, the agency sold about $22 million in 2026.

“It’s all about referrals,” Smith told TMR. “In luxury, more than anything it’s about keeping people – and we went from 4.9 to 5.0 on Google on 660 reviews.”

Unlike most franchises in the network – and indeed, most agencies in the country – Travel Perks relies on full-time employees rather than ICs. Its training program relies on a tiered structure where new agents cut their teeth selling basic cruises before moving up to all-inclusive resorts and Hawaii, then land vacations and escorted groups, then luxury cruising, then river, then expedition.

Under a new model launched in January 2026, advisors were allowed just one year to qualify for luxury in order to remain with the agency. But to help them get there, a new lawyer/paralegal model Smith set in place assigned an admin to assist each one, giving the advisors more time to focus on what they do best.

The idea of “paying people more and requiring them to do more, but giving them admins to help them, is really working,” Smith said. 

Smith also has been focused on getting positive Reddit reviews, believing that ChatGPT’s search engines feed off of those. Now he incentivizes advisors $25 for every five-star review.