Advisors and suppliers meet at the Global Travel Marketplace 2024 (Photo Credit: Eric Bowman)
The 2024 Global Travel Marketplace (GTM), which took place Thursday, July 18 through Saturday, July 20 at The Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood, Florida, has been helping the travel industry grow millions of dollars now for over a decade.
This year’s event saw record attendance, with 171 hosted travel advisors meeting and networking with 188 different travel suppliers. Over 900 travel advisor applications were submitted.
To be here, travel advisors must meet specific criteria, including having annual individual sales of at least $1 million or owning a multi-million-dollar agency. This is one of the reasons this event continues to see success in its 12th year, said Alicia Evanko-Lewis, Executive Vice President of Travel Group Global Events at Northstar Travel Group. (Editor’s note: Northstar is the parent company of TravelPulse.)
“The advisors here represent hundreds of millions of dollars in worldwide sales annually,” said Evanko-Lewis. “When you take into account their sphere of influence beyond this room with other agencies and advisors – the potential is endless.”
The travel advisor and supplier attendees say it’s a win-win for all.
Making Connections, Growing Businesses
One-on-one appointments between travel advisors and suppliers are a staple of many travel industry events.
A major difference between GTM and other events is that travel advisors have their own tables, with the suppliers moving around from appointment to appointment. Advisors decorate their tables with their personal flair, which allows them to showcase their personalities and helps the suppliers learn a little bit more about the advisors.
These six-minute one-on-one meetings are all about connecting with a common goal of building a relationship to ultimately grow business together.
Fostering that advisor-supplier relationship growth is key to the entire travel industry thriving.
“It’s great for opening the line of communication with me and the suppliers,” said
Courtney Jackson, Lifestyle Travel Advisor with Wishful Escapes. “It’s a great introduction to my business and what they can offer, so that once we leave here, we can continue the conversation about how we can partner together. I’ve had a great time meeting with suppliers that I have never worked with before and learning what they can offer myself and my clients.”
Shelia Folk, CEO and founder of Travel Industry Solutions, attended her first GTM event this year and said she was blown away by all the “incredible talent” in the room.
“This is the most amazing event,” Folk said. “I could not have asked for a better show. The biggest thing about this show is the incredible number of professional, committed advisors in one room. It is so refreshing to see so many advisors who are uber committed to their business and the level of success that they’ve achieved, the vision that they have in moving their agency forward. The size of the agencies, that’s really shocking to me with the number of agency owners here who have 20, 50, 100 advisors working under them. And then the solo advisors who have big plans to grow their agency and you can see it. They have it.”
Travel advisors and suppliers networking at the 2024 Global Travel Marketplace (Photo Credit: Eric Bowman)
Future Leaders Rising
This year’s event also had 11 alumni from the Future Leaders in Travel Retreat, another Northstar Travel Group event that takes travel advisors aged 22-40 and helps them grow their businesses with supplier meetings and professional development workshops.
Ashely Taylor, Senior Travel Advisor with Key to the World Travel, credits the Future Leaders event for helping her earn a spot to attend GTM.
“They teach you how to sell and grow your business,” said Taylor. “Future Leaders was amazing and helped me grow my business [to get here].”
For Carly Heyward, owner of Flight of the Educator, hitting the $1 million sales mark to qualify for GTM was a goal she set following the Future Leaders in Travel Retreat.
“Future Leaders helped me double my business,” Heyward said. “For me, I feel like Future Leaders was more helpful in learning best practices, learning how to be better at social media and finding new clients. And then now at GTM, I feel like this is more helpful for me knowing what to offer and who to go to for the best resources, stuff like that.
Advisors and suppliers meet at the Global Travel Marketplace 2024 (Photo Credit: Eric Bowman)
Learning From Each Other
In addition to hearing from suppliers in the one-on-one meetings, advisors attend supplier sponsored boardroom sessions each day.
Suppliers buy in to host these boardroom presentations, during which they’ll have 30 minutes to discuss their brand, further engage with the advisors, and help educate them on all they have to offer.
“Sponsoring a boardroom, that is always a must,” said Andy Fuentes, Regional Sales Director at Atlas Ocean Voyages, who is attending his fourth. GTM. “I always recommend other suppliers to do as such, because you have that one-on-one time with them. [Advisors] are here to learn.”
Fuentes discussed how the six-minute appointments are great, but the boardroom has really helped him gain more leads for growing business.
“You want to present the product in front of them and the boardrooms make that happen, you have that connection,” Fuentes said. “I’ve had a lot of leads and a lot of connections made at GTM. I’ve had a lot of folks begin to start selling expedition because of the boardroom presentation at GTM.”
Advisors learn a great deal about new things from so many suppliers while attending GTM, however, they also learn from each other on how to be better in their jobs and life.
“Making those connections, meeting other advisors, it’s always a huge thing for me,” Taylor said. “The boardroom has been great. It’s much easier to have a conversation and see how they run their businesses.”
Community over competition is an often-heard phrase from travel advisors helping other travel advisors, and that is showcased all over GTM.
“This morning someone mentioned needing help with Antarctica, which is my big niche,” Heyward said. “I slid her my business card and said, ‘Hey girl, message me.’ It doesn’t need to be a commission split; I just love talking about it. She specializes in Disney, and that is my big weakness, so now I’m going to talk to her about Disney. So, by helping each other, there’s enough business for everybody, and we can all grow.
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