A new collective for female luxury travel agents is set to shake up the industry, empowering its members to work together to grow their individual businesses.
The brainchild of Limelight Escapes founder Nadine Brady, Travel Sisterhood was launched last year as an online support network exclusively for women in the trade. Its membership has since climbed from a modest 15 elite luxury travel agents to a cohort of 60, with representation in countries all over the world, including the UK, US, Spain, Italy, Greece, Australia and India.
The idea for the initiative, which is proud to operate on ‘feminine energy’, came to Brady after her own experience in the early stages of her career.
“I didn’t have a ton of support when I started off as a travel agent – I learnt on the job,” Brady tells TTG Luxury. “But when I was on fam trips, I learnt so much from the other agents on the trip. I noticed I was meeting with agents who were a one-man or one-woman band. Quite often, they voiced that they felt out on their own, even if they were part of a consortium.”
Determined to combat this trend of isolation, Brady decided to create a WhatsApp group for her fellow travel designers. Over a casual lunch, she and a friend broke out their respective address books and tallied up a list of 15 female luxury agents, many of whom were independent advisors. They titled the group “Travel Sisterhood”, and within days, connections were being made.
Travel Sisterhood also recently gathered at Nobu London to mark its one-year anniversary, celebrate its successful launch and discuss its vision for the future.
What exactly is Travel Sisterhood?
As the name implies, Travel Sisterhood is a women’s-only collective run on a pulse of familial values. Having recently migrated to Slack, its primary objective is to create a support network for female luxury travel agents and to offer useful resources to help them grow both professionally and personally.
“Travel Sisterhood provides me with a sense of identity, a sense of camaraderie and a safe haven to really discuss the pain points of our industry,” Rebecca Puttock, founder of Wanderlux Travel and proud member of the collective, tells TTG Luxury.
Expertise at your fingertips
With its agents hailing from a wide range of backgrounds, Travel Sisterhood is brimming with expertise. This allows members to gain invaluable insights from reputable sources, enhancing their own travel knowledge and that of the others in the group.
“You can only know so much, and you might be working with a new client, or you’re dealing with a new destination that you’re not used to, and you can tap into the collective knowledge of the group,” Brady explains. “There’s no such thing as a stupid question here.”
This applies to business advice too; Brady adds that members are welcome to ask for entrepreneurial tips, which when answered, again, benefits the collective as a whole.
A 24/7 lifeline
The global nature of the group means that, no matter the hour, there’s almost always a person available to offer support.
“You can ask a question, at any time of the day or the night, and there’s someone in another time zone that can answer that question,” Brady says.
‘A Safe Space to Rant’
Travel Sisterhood also has a designated forum for its agents to express the inevitable frustrations that come with the job, such as demanding clients or uncooperative suppliers.
“We have a safe space on Slack to rant for anyone who needs to offload and gain support from their comrades,” Brady says. This open communication also allows Travel Sisterhood to develop a database of information on suppliers, which often reveals repetitive patterns of behaviour from certain businesses.
“We’re building a general storyline of the suppliers that are supporting independent agents and the ones that aren’t,” says Puttock. “We’re collecting data that’s not just invaluable to us, but invaluable to the entire industry.”
Membership can also be particularly helpful for empowering agents, some of whom, as independent advisors, may face more problems than those employed by companies.
“We’ve had agents who are having issues with hotels who are not paying commission in good time. They’ll ask the first time, and might not get anywhere. The second time, they say they’re part of a collective. It gives them gravitas,” Brady says.
This also rewards the suppliers that are performing well, as agents are likely to share positive experiences and recommendations with one another in the group.
“We’re getting a good response from the suppliers too,” Puttock adds. “Sometimes just you need a larger voice to be heard. We’re finding we’re being listened to now – it’s working. We’re seeing results, and the approach we’re taking is a softer, and more constructive one.”
Proudly Feminine
Travel Sisterhood doesn’t shy away from its female-led culture, celebrating and promoting the important qualities that women bring to business.
“Even though there’s so many women working in travel, it’s still mainly men at the top,” Brady says. “I’ve always said I want us to work in a feminine energy kind of way. We can support one another and hold one another up, helping each other to be better. If more organisations took that approach, I think it’d be a better world.”
Future of Travel Sisterhood
Brady and Puttock are now in the process of planning the group’s expansion, which hopes to include business and personal development retreats, as well as matching services for advisors with the suppliers. Agents will also be invited to upload an online profile listing their specialities, which will also help inform on the type of events that will most benefit the collective.
Travel Sisterhood has currently capped its membership, but agents can be reassured that the pause is only temporary and in the meantime, a waiting list has been created for applications.
“It’s 100% going to be open again, it’s a big motivator for us,” says Puttock. “A significant evolution is about to unfold, and we need to make sure we have all our ducks in a row to evolve that strategically. This takes a level of commitment, and we want to make sure it’s managed in the best way possible.”
A monthly nominal fee may also be introduced as membership expands, to ensure the group continues to run efficiently. “A charge could potentially be brought in, but the most important thing is to keep it as a collective where everyone feels included,” Brady adds. “Watch this space!”
