I am originally from the UK, but moved to Canada in 2012. My first role was as director of sales at North South Travel. A wonderful, local agency in Vancouver. I was there for just over six years. Then in January, 2021 I started my own agency, Wells Luxury Travel.
I have always been a world traveller and this started at a very young age (to date I have visited over 70 countries, lived on three continents and visited all seven!) I truly love selling. I knew if I was going to leave my previous role, I would want to incorporate selling full-time, and since I made the switch to running my own boutique travel agency, I am in love with the industry more than ever.
Knowing my planning and execution helps to enhance my clients’ trips and seeing all of the regular referrals I am blessed to receive. When they come back from an amazing trip full of gratitude, it is an amazing feeling. I love that my personal relationships with hoteliers and DMCs can truly make a difference to my client experiences. I also love the incredible travel opportunities I am so fortunate to experience due to my job, and sharing that with my husband, best friends and family.
Things that are out of our control that we get blamed for i.e. bad weather, flight issues, poor service at the hotel despite our best efforts to ensure the clients have the best time.
Take your time to review – we are working at a million miles per hour and small mistakes can be costly. I would also say – make sure you know your worth and charge for your time. The more we do it collectively – the easier it is to raise up our profession and for everyone to earn a better living for the hard work we do.
I am still finding it is. I focus solely on the luxury space so I work with HNW and UNHW travellers and they are planning so much travel – bigger and more expensive trips.
You simply can’t compare the two. I think people want the support, advice and the first-hand intel. That is why I believe it is so important to travel as much as you can and experience products and destinations yourself. I also am always reading industry news and following my industry peers to see what new hotels they’re touring or experiences they are trying. I offer collaborative planning services for my clients too, those who are used to researching their own stuff tend to love this as I explain it is totally fine if they want to still look into things themselves, I just encourage to share what they find/think they’d love with me first before booking anything as I can likely make suggestions to better enhance it or share real-time feedback on items.
I have a full range actually: affluent millennials up to retirees in their 70s. I also have a mix of Canadian, US and UK clients and they travel to different places so that adds to the fun. I seem to have a lot of successful younger clients who splurge on travel and a growing number of “close to retiring” clients or those selling their businesses, who want to work with us to maximize their “Return on Life” as my consortia Virtuoso says.
Such a tough one… but one fairly recent one was my honeymoon last year. We flew to Africa two days after our wedding and to spend a dedicated 17 days – offline – with my husband, in an incredibly special part of the world – seeing such amazing things and experiencing the best of the best — was just so magical. We went on safari and visited three out-of-this-world lodges, spent time in Cape Town and Franschhoek at the wineries and finished in paradise in Mozambique – on Benguerra Island. We are so lucky!
Nearly $290k for two people on a dreamy honeymoon to Australia and New Zealand. This includes long-haul business class airfare and then private jets domestically for convenience. It was over Christmas and New Year at the best lodges in Australia and New Zealand, incredible private sightseeing experiences by helicopter, top culinary experiences and finishing with the Sydney fireworks on NYE!
I am a huge advocate of charging for your time. My minimum is now $750 and that is up to six hours of work. Based on the consultation, if it’s a longer trip or a larger group the fees may start at $1250. Our hourly fee for the concierge-like booking support and management is charged at $125 an hour.
I just feel very blessed every day – we work so hard but I truly love what I do and am so passionate about travel. I think it’s very important to ensure you still are passionate about what you do – and make sure you find time and the investment to actually travel yourself!
