Born into the Travel Business: What Drove Second-Generation Advisors Away – And What Brought Them Back

Nearly 15 years ago, this author wrote an article – Image, Education, Money Drive Young People Away – about the rapidly growing dearth of younger travel advisors in the agency industry. At the time, being a travel advisor wasn’t on the radar for most Millennial adults (between 15 and 30 years old in 2011 when the article was written) and hadn’t been for many years.

That wasn’t only true for those who had no connection with the industry, even the kids of long-time travel advisors and agency owners weren’t interested.

“Honestly, it hadn’t even crossed my mind as a 21-, 22-year-old,” said Avery Harris, director of Viking Travel, who is a third-generation member of Viking Travel’s ownership. “I never even thought I’m going to work at my mom’s travel agency. That literally never crossed my mind.”

Harris wasn’t alone.

TMR recently spoke with four second- or third-generation travel advisors (three Millennials and one Gen X-er) who originally discounted joining the agency industry, despite growing up surrounded by it.

“It was never the intention when I graduated high school, when I went to college to come work at Amazing Journeys,” said Erin Herman, marketing director at Amazing Journeys, whose mother is the agency’s founder.

Today, all four are firmly ensconced in the business.

But what kept them away? And why did they come back?

Never a Serious Consideration

All four of the advisors told TMR that joining the family business wasn’t something they had ever seriously considered.

For Lauren Doyle, president of The Travel Mechanic, it was because she’d always dreamed of being a teacher.

“It was one of those dreams from childhood that I knew, when I was little that I’m going to be a teacher,” she told TMR.

For Herman, who worked at her mother’s agency during all her college breaks and summers at home – and admitted she loved every minute of it – she also never considered a career as a travel advisor.

“I wasn’t going to do something just because it’s expected of me… I was never asked to take this on,” she said.

Jason Block, CEO of WorldVia and son of industry icon Roger Block, former president of Travel Leaders Network, had toyed with the idea in his teens but gave up the idea as soon as he got to college. (Block is the sole Gen X-er TMR spoke with.)

“I had always talked to my parents about going to work with them one day and then I went to college, and I’m being exposed to all kinds of different things… my parents asked, do you want to come work here, and I said no.”

No Future in the Agency Business

A finance major at the time, Block was interested in getting a job on Wall Street and didn’t see much value in the agency industry.

“I remember having conversations with my dad in the late 90s, early 2000s, like how are you still in business… vehement conversations, like you better find an escape plan because this thing is a one-way ticket to nowhere,” he told TMR.

“I didn’t see any avenue for growth,” he added, referring mostly to the speed of consolidation that was taking place in the industry in the early 2000s. “Basically, other agencies were gobbling up other ones just to stay alive. That’s how I looked at it, why would you try to start something in that kind of environment?”

Block also told TMR he thinks the types of trips he was doing in his 20s also influenced his belief system about the value of advisors.

“In my early post-college years, everything was I’m going to book it on Expedia. That was the kind of travel I did. My whole frame of reference was short, quick, I’m flying to Manhattan for two nights, why would you use an advisor, that makes no sense.”

Harris told TMR he doesn’t really know why joining his family’s business, which opened in 1979, never occurred to him.

“I just thought I would do something else,” he said, adding that even having grown up in the industry, he didn’t consider “travel advisor” (then travel agent) a common job.

Unlike the others TMR spoke with, Harris did go to work at his family’s agency after college as he looked for other jobs. His time at the agency was supposed to be a “stop gap,” he said. It was never meant to be permanent.

“It’s not something that people think of at a career fair,” he said. “When I was starting, in 2012, that was the beginning of the big OTA stuff… I remember all these questions of wow, you’re going to go work in a travel agency. You’re just going to go out of business because of the Internet.”

Returning to the Fold

Each advisor’s journey back to the travel industry was different, but one thing that stood out in all of our discussions was an adult realization for each that being a travel advisor is a viable career path.

For Herman it took several years of working at various ad and marketing agencies in Atlanta and Chicago before she had her epiphany.

“It was truly something that we [Herman and her sister] loved… and over the years it just came to both of us, why not do something that you love? Why do something else and try and fit this into your other schedule, just make it full time,” she said.

Until that moment, shortly after getting her MBA, she hadn’t put together that she could apply her education in marketing and business towards “this industry that I love and this business that is my family’s,” she said.

Block, who spent two decades in various businesses, had a similar realization in 2013 while helping a friend plan a trip.

“He knew I knew a fair amount about travel, so I was helping him out. He wanted the expertise of an advisor, but he was saying how painful of an experience it was. And I was like, maybe this industry just needs continue to adapt and evolve… I decided maybe there’s some value I can offer, maybe I can be successful in this business.”

For Doyle, ten years into her career as a teacher resulted in burnout. Combined with a personal tragedy, she found herself reconsidering her life’s direction. An offer from her mom to head up The Travel Mechanic’s honeymoon and destination wedding division brought her back to the family business.

Part of what swayed her decision was the lifestyle her mother had built for herself.

“She designed her life awesome… She was out playing golf. She was playing tennis. She had a gorgeous house in South Carolina, and I was like, I love this. Why have to do a 9 to 3 teaching job? … She created her own hours and she was her own boss and that was so motivational and inspiring.”

Even then, she was hesitant and didn’t jump in with both feet right away, choosing to teach and work at the agency part time until she could make enough money to do it full time.

“My husband was like, that’s a dying industry, you are not leaving teaching,” she said, adding she was also worried about the income. “But, news flash, teachers don’t make a ton of money,” she said.

Value Proposition Has Never Been Greater

All the advisors TMR spoke with have now been working the travel industry for 10 or more years, and all agree the future of the travel advisor channel has never been better.

“There is tremendous opportunity for individual advisor success and the value prop has gotten even stronger,” Block said.  

“I went from the first five years of working in the business of people telling travel advisor are going away, everything is on the Internet,” Harris said, to people being driven to advisors because the Internet is too confusing.

Speaking of individual success, Doyle told TMR last year (2024) was the first time her income from being a travel advisor actually matched her husband’s salary.

Being an advisor is also personally rewarding, the advisors we spoke to said.

“I’m very passionate about the work we do because I truly believe it makes a big impact on people’s lives, a very positive impact,” Harris said.  

All of that combined has more younger people interested in joining the travel industry than in many years.

“There’s a weird thing going on right now where there’s more of the Gen Z age group who are interested in being travel advisors or working travel than there were for my age group just above that – the Millennials,” Harris said.

The one advisor we spoke with who did join her family’s business straight out of college is part of that Gen Z demographic.

“I saw the success my grandma and mom have had my whole life and there was never a doubt that it wouldn’t work. Especially if I worked hard at it!” said Emma Johnson, an ALTOUR travel consultant, and a third-generation advisor.

Johnson, who said she had the “option to get my doctorate or go into the family business,” joined the agency out college, despite being curious “to explore different industries.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a business owner or have my own operation of some sort so the idea of working side-by-side with my mom was more tempting than continuing my education.”