Skip to main content

Travel Counsellor builds specialist brand around gluten-free travel: 'Don't wait for the perfect time to specialise – there isn't one'

Interview
Dea Jusufi
14 July 2026

Agents shouldn’t wait for the "perfect time" to specialise, says Travel Counsellor Carli Lane, after turning her own experience with coeliac disease into a growing travel business built around a database of more than 200 hotels, cruise lines and resorts.

Travel Counsellors agent Carli Lane with daughter Merryn
Carli Lane

Both Carli and her daughter Merryn were diagnosed with coealic disease in 2021

Carli spent 15 years with First Choice and Tui before leaving travel to raise her family. When she returned to the industry as a Travel Counsellor, both she and her daughter had been diagnosed with coeliac disease – gluten intolerance. It was then she saw the opportunity to create a specialist business helping travellers with dietary requirements.

Carli believes one of the biggest mistakes agents can make is "assuming they need to establish themselves" before developing a specialist offering. Even before she publicly promoted gluten-free travel, she had begun researching hotels that catered well for coeliac travellers.