A self-proclaimed perfectionist, Erica Carr stumbled into travel in 2019, booking a jaw-dropping 100 trips her first year … just in time for the worldwide pandemic. But ain’t no pandemic stopping this lady. Nope, Erica and her team of three employees are on track to bring in $2.2M in sales for 2022!

Bookitbox TRAVEL is a luxury travel agency with a spin. Every client gets a box pre-departure with travel info and gifts personalized to their unique itinerary. As they say at Bookitbox, “All boxed up and TSA approved.” Join us as we take a peek inside her boxes and Erica shares why she thinks the boxes have been so instrumental in helping her agency grow. 

Oh, and copy cats. Most of us face them at one time or another. As you’ll find out, Erica is entirely transparent in what she does with the boxes and how it’s helped. So how does she deal with other businesses taking pages from her playbook? It might surprise you! 😊 

We’ll chat with Erica on how she made the transition from never having really traveled in the high-end luxury space ended up opening a successful agency that has a $10k minimum spend for clients. She’ll share with us her approach of ‘loving on her clients’ and how she surprises clients throughout their journey with small gifts and unexpected touchpoints.  

We’ll also touch on how she used the pandemic to systematize her agency so that coming out of the pandemic, she saw hockey stick growth in her sales. Through all this, she grew her team of employees throughout the US. If you’re wondering how to manage a remote team and hire the right people for your agency without being able to be in the same office, Erica has some tips for you on that too. 

Settle in and get ready as we take a deep dive into yet another success agency owner’s story!

****** Special thanks to our sponsor, Levarte Travel: https://hostagencyreviews.com/hosts/levarte-travel ******

 ****** Transcript + Show Notes: https://har.news/vol24

Travel Agent Chatter

Trascript + Show Notes

Vol 24 | $0 to 2.2M in 4 (pandemic) years. Surprise travel box w/goodies for clients. Meet Erica!

In episode 150 Steph fields some great questions from our good friend Anonymous (ha!) about naming your biz and choosing a HA based on locality. She also breaks down how to become a travel agent in some handy steps! 

1.	I am just stepping into starting a travel agency at the very early stages and still working on what it would look like for me. When considering a niche and a business name, I suspect having the niche in the business name can help, but would it cause issues if I wanted to pivot or expand to a different niche at some point in the future and possibly require a business name change and rebranding challenges. Do you have any advice or should I just worry about the future.  –Anonymous

2.	How important is it to join a local host agency? —Anonymous

3.	I know there isn’t one set answer for this, but how would you break down the steps on how to become a travel agent?  —Anonymous





TODAY’S RESOURCES:

https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/find-a-travel-niche (Guide to choosing a travel niche)
https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/tips-for-choosing-travel-agency-names (Tips for choosing travel agency names + examples)
https://hostagencyreviews.com/7DS-lite (HAR’s 7 Day Setup LITE is a free online course that helps you start your agency. It does not have support and takes you through resources to help you make things happen)
https://hostagencyreviews.com/7DS-accelerator (HAR’s 7 Day Setup Accelerator course with 70+ easily digestible videos, 48 exclusive resources, monthly live meetups with HAR team and others for support and accountability, priority email support)
https://hostagencyreviews.com/hosts (Find a map of host agencies on our host agency list.) 
https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/how-to-become-a-travel-agent (All you need to know to become a travel agent)
https://hostagencyreviews.com/page/travel-advisor-research-reports/ (Travel agent survey data on employee travel agents and self-employed travel agents.)

Ask Your Questions

(150) What’s in a (business) name? Locality of HA? Steps to Becoming an Agent?

We’ve got two listening delights for you on this channel, folks! 😲 

The first is Travel Agent Chatter (TAC), a spotlight interview of a wide variety of travel advisors that we publish every quarter. 

The second is our shorter, but more frequent Friday 15 series, where every Friday we answer your travel industry questions for — you guessed it — 15 minutes!

Travel Agent Chatter -- a Host Agency Reviews audio series -- talks about all things travel. We specialize in-depth interviews with travel agents from all walks of life.

Whether you’re a new or experienced travel advisor, we help you up your game by sharing where other travel agencies have found success and offering inspiring stories from the front lines!

Transcripts, videos and show notes of the TAC episodes can be found at https://hostagencyreviews.com/TAC

And every Friday at 12pm CT we publish the Friday 15 to our TAC feed. It’s 15 minutes over the lunch hour, where we answer your travel industry questions. Submit your questions and watch videos of the Friday 15 at https://hostagencyreviews.com/friday15.

Travel Agent Chatter and the Friday 15 are hosted by Steph Lee, the founder of the website Host Agency Reviews and travel industry veteran. She's insatiably curious. A lover of travel, writing, gardening & the stars. Most importantly, she ♥'s her dogs, Fennec and Orion!

(150) What’s in a (business) name? Locality of HA? Steps to Becoming an Agent?

Travel Agent Chatter :and: Friday 15

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