How to Attract Travel Advisors

Being more proactive about recruiting quality, experienced, and successful travel agents might be the one of the productive efforts you make to succeed.

Like all online companies, you need marketing techniques that attract competent new and seasoned travel advisors.

The value proposition of individual, successful agents is high.  They have a network of loyal clients whom they guide, so having them move over to your firm to sell your packages and trips can be lucrative.  You may be a great negotiator and might only need to have them contact you in the right frame of mind.

Using Your Website to Recruit Advisors

If you’re performing recruitment without an online content strategy, you’re missing out on its potential. Because travel agents/advisors will visit your website and social media channels, read your company, agent reviews, traveler’s reviews, company financials, and get a good look at your executive team. Then from that, they build a picture of your brand, integrity, sales, growth trend, online success, and other factors and arrive at a single emotion.

Yes, all shoppers of anything come to a complex understanding that results in an emotion.  I know it’s hard to see how a single emotional vibe or feeling determines their willingness/intent to contact you. But at a moment of decision, that one complex emotion gives them the go signal.

Discussions with a recruiter, executive, or salesperson may not be effective. Trust, credibility, and likability are issues. Sometimes, material that is available whenever they want to experience it is more powerful.  Content strategy and persuasive copywriting can stimulate their mind helping them create the visualization they need before they move forward to discover more.

There is a mental/emotional block that creates inertia in every successful professional. They don’t want to lose what they have to a foolish decision. More earnings isn’t the point. They’re looking at the overall picture (whatever that is to them) and whether the change fits them.

Fit then is the key matter. If you get that big picture image right, then greater commissions, freedom, resources, and a better product to sell to a bigger market will interest them.  It’s simple personal psychology.

What Do Top Performing Travel Advisors Want?

Discovering what their wants, pain points and ideal situation is, positioning your personalize, unique value proposition to them and then putting forward the right offer is essential to recruitment.

Here are some key points to consider:

Career Issues/Problems (your opportunity)

• Advisors are Getting Older and Retiring — creating openings in other firms for other older established agents, or younger agents and awakening their desire for more.
• Advisors are Leaving to Find Greener Pastures – feelings of needing or deserving more.
• New, Trained but Talented Agents Lack Skills and Need a New Growth-Positive Opportunity – however, they can access a younger travel audience you don’t currently serve.
• Lack of Training and Support – your offer of AI-powered management and marketing tools will entice.
• Poor Marketing and Lead Generation – your company’s effort to bring in leads for them with a strong online presence communicates a lot about your intent.
• Agencies Struggling to Generate Enough Leads and High-Quality Traveler Leads – a great content strategy strongly promoted gets reach to deliver the right branded message.
• Larger Agencies Raiding Smaller Agencies – how will you stop them poaching your best agents?
• High Turnover Rate Due to Competition and Marketing Challenges – sustained sales success is difficult and requires money and support.
• More Quality, Available Advisors Translates to Greater Revenue – filling voids in desirable niches requires some techniques and finesse but you can help.
• Agencies are Relying on Independent Travel Advisors —  they develop their own networks via marketing to get leads and stay visible – nice to have agents who deliver more value to your brand.
• Aren’t Being Paid Enough – most agencies can’t deliver the leads and support advisor earnings and instead are trying to exploit them, so your program says the opposite.
• Aren’t Working Smartly or Hard Enough to Succeed – ambitious, motivated, goal-minded agents visualize their success strongly and you can give them the final boost to that goal.
• Limited Selection of Travel Destinations and Trips – offering relevant new or additional destinations and suppliers can help you seal the deal with new agents.
• They’re Being Pressured to Sell Trips/packages that Aren’t Right for their Customers – your cue to find out why your packages aren’t a right fit and making adjustments.
• Clunky Trip Booking Systems or Outdated Software – a bad travel management software system can be a deal breaker.
• Demanding Clients Expecting White Glove Service – you might be able to help them automate or at least deliver the concierge service top customers are willing to pay for.
• Long, Exhausting, Awkward Hours – AI systems can help with the drudgery and off-hours workloads

Help them Visualize a Much Better, Pleasant, Sustainable Career with Your Firm

The “why” is key. And that’s where segmenting agent types might help.  Then you can create separate recruitment streams for each type.

Most likely, they’re comfortable where they are and can’t visualize a better scenario that has limited risks. Agents don’t switch companies unless they feel dissatisfied or haven’t found a reliable travel company that will provide a better work experience, income and more clients.  Your online content is your conversation and initial relationship with these advisors and tells them immediately whether you’re on the same wavelength.

As digital marketers we need a strategy to reach them, wow them, influence them and move them to act on their impulse.  Research is key. Because we need to know exactly why they’re where they are, what their outlook is and why, and what’s missing in their own business dream, and why they aren’t budging.

Agencies are hungry to sign more advisors, but attracting and signing poor-quality people may create brand damage, friction, extra work for your trainer, and extra management for you – without results. Reach to all agents is great, but you should have a marketing effort where only the best will contact you, and the rest don’t bother.

In this post, we aim to create a content strategy that supports a high-quality recruitment strategy and eliminates low quality leads.

How Does Your Company’s Online Presence Help?

At any point in time, they will visit the online home of your company – your website. They want to visualize your agency, its brand and business, customers and management team. They want to feel the right vibes about your company. If they don’t, they leave without contacting you.

So your UVP and brand should be easily consumed and resonate with what they want for their career as a travel advisor. Let’s look at Avoya’s agent recruitment effort.

A search on Google reveals a link to Avoya’s advisor recruitment page as seen here:

Right away, they hit you with a cash offer, which ranges from $75 in Avoya cash (what is that?).  $75 is not really an incentive for a successful advisor or agent. It’s a number that attracts low quality leads.

Next click brings us to their intro page where they talk about themselves and try to establish credibility.  Notice on the lefthand menu the phrase “lowest price guarantee”, “Pricing Terms” and “about our ads.” Those items are not only irrelevant to an initial presentation, they come across as a disclaimer.  How many successful advisors would be inspired by that?

Their text-based intro does little to make the agent feel special, elevated, welcomed and respected.  It doesn’t help the agent visualize the outcome of joining Avoya’s Network. The agent only wants to know what the outcome will feel like – the image of them being happy and successful.

The copy mentions that Avoya offers discounts, amenities?, and first-class service to travelers. The problem with this is that competent, confident travel advisors want to know right away what Avoya will do for them. Instead, the visitor has to click and click to peel off the layers of what looks like an onion.

In all honesty, it’s the usual empty corporate promises. I’m not sure if it even appeals to desperate, unqualified, inexperienced newbies. It’s important to avoid activating low quality leads.  I’m not a recruiter, but as a travel business owner, you’re looking to attract successful, intelligent, and stable advisors, who need to know you’re sincerely committed to them.

The issue with a corporate-first approach is that the agent doesn’t get the special vibes they need to feel about them inside Avoya. Two clicks and a lot of reading, and there are still no warm fuzzy good vibes.

Our 3^rd click leads us to the Avoya Travel Network website, which mentions an Elite agent program with 100% of the commission. Then it asks us to join the list. I don’t want to join a list, I want to feel the power of my new career with Avoya Travel with the good vibes that tell me I’d be making a good career decision.  They need us to preview that decision which preconditions us to accept everything that leads to it – paving our path to fulfillment.

They offer 3 promises for new agents:

1. Industry-Leading Solutions
2. Quality You Can Trust
3. Commitment to Innovation

All good, but is it enough to capture us emotionally and drive the decision to inquire from a high-quality talent? And can you write it so it repels those who are not the best candidates?

What could Avoya Travel offer to resolve a successful agent’s pain points?  Here’s a one-page process that might work better:

First view on landing page – a photo of people who look like real, successful travel agents chatting (no DEI here) with a calm, confident look that says “I made the right decision.”

A travel agent quote about the workplace comfort, support, autonomy, leads, new clients, benefits, and earnings they’re enjoying.  That helps them create a powerful, credible visualization of the end goal.

3, easy to understand and remember promises/satisfactions:

1. Comfortable, powerful travel management system
2. Dedication to lead generation
3. Industry leading commissions

Then, pose a UVP statement that is all about elevating them.

Start with a heading that says, “WHAT MAKES AVOYA THE MOST SIGNIFICANT TRAVEL COMPANY FOR YOU?”

Follow with a supporting section of copy that proves Avoya is the most emotionally significant, and most eager to include them in their elite team of travel advisors.

As a successful advisor, leaving your current role to move to a better company may feel like a big leap. It’s natural to wonder if the upside with another firm is true.  At Avoya, we’re here to make that transition not just easier, but truly rewarding for you.

Imagine a place where you’re free to build your business your way, with the tools, support, and flexibility to grow at your own pace. We’ve designed our management platform, travel products, support services, and agent training to remove the friction and streamline your day-to-day work so you can focus on what really matters: your clients and your passion for travel.

Whether it’s cutting-edge marketing tools, innovative trip booking technology, or ongoing professional development, we’re committed to helping top talent build clientele, raise your earnings—not just today, but for the long term. At Avoya Travel, you’re not just another agent; you’re part of an elite community that’s invested in your growth, your goals, and your peace of mind.

And lastly, include a call to action to give them forward motion to contact you:

Advance your career and rediscover why you fell in love with this industry in the first place. Let’s build something amazing—together.

The next step is a phone call or Zoom call with you or your recruiter, because person-to-person conversation is the most powerful, sincere, emotion-building act that can get them to act. Of course, you’ll be collecting vital information about what type of agent they are and how you can refine your value proposition and offer, and how you can move them into the switch process.

Since you’re only attracting the best candidates, you don’t need mechanisms to ensure their sincerity, but rather to prove your own sincerity to them. Because they are a good candidate and are your real ideal customer.

How To Reach Great Travel Advisors

The agents you want are successful, experienced, sophisticated, and have a particular view of how an advisor should ideally work. You must have your marketing content focused, laser clear, about how to support the vision of fulfillment they must see.

Then it’s onto placing that content where great travel advisors visit.

Best Sources to Reach Them:

• Top travel industry portals
• Top travel publications
• Travel Agent Communities & Associations
• Linkedin
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Google search
• Travel industry headhunters

Worst places to Recruit from:

• Job boards
• monster.com, Indeed, and travel jobs sites
• Popular YouTubers or social media travel influencers
• Agent referral programs
• General advertising

It’s really about quality in each source, having a great content strategy (with UVP/offer), and doubling down on those sources with the best targeting services. Top industry publications, Linkedin, Facebook, headhunters, and Google search are best sources for quality candidates. Regardless of the source, the key is the excellence of the content that will present your persuasive UVP and offer to them, as I’ve explained above.

Building a content strategy for each type of travel advisor, focusing on the benefits they want, and creating the vision they want to see.  They want to move to your agency. They’re just looking for solid justification.

Why don’t we get your travel company visible to the very best advisors who will become some of your company’s best business assets? Check out a better package of travel marketing services.

Contact Gord at 416 998 6246 if success is important to you.