How I Became A Travel Agent
My first “business card” - April 2022
May 8, 2021 - The day I told my nephews and kids that they were going to Disney.
March 17, 2022 - The day I loaded them on a plane and headed to Orlando.
It all began as a bit of “revenge travel” - a desire for my brother and I to take our boys on our first family vacation and for them to experience Florida for the first time. After we decided, I went into super planning mode. I read ALL the blogs and looked at ALL the Facebook pages. I ended up on the Disney side of TikTok, commonly known as DisTok. I made us a crazy hour-by-hour itinerary for the entire time we were gone. We had dining reservations, park reservations, a plan for Genie Plus - I did it all!
While I was on the trip, there was something missing for me. I realized that I actually missed the planning part! I had spent so many months researching, booking, and planning — and I realized that I enjoyed it! While I was still in Florida, I called an agent friend of mine and told her I thought I may be crazy but that I was thinking I may be able to do what she does. Instead of talking some sense into me, she did quite the opposite - she encouraged me! After years of serving in healthcare and corporate retail as an executive secretary (who also used to book travel!), my organizational skills were perfect. Additionally I had owned a direct-sales business for many years, giving me the marketing and entrepreneurial know-how I needed to get my travel business off the ground.
I had an absolute disaster of a trip home. After sitting on the MCO runway for over 3 hours with my two small children, we deplaned and never got back on. I had no idea that flight delay and eventual cancellation was giving me real-life experience for what would be my career! After returning back home on April 3, 2022, I began the process of what would seriously change my life!
On April 20, 2022 I signed my contract and began my training with Travelmation. I had an initial goal of booking $10,000 in travel. Boy, I had NO idea what my potential was, and I also had NO idea what I had gotten myself into!
After a lot of grit and hard work, I booked almost $16,000 in travel that first year and made just enough money basically to get my hair done a few times and go out for a coffee. And then I went to our annual retreat at Walt Disney World Resort in January 2023 - and my entire life changed!
I didn’t choose to specialize in Japan - Japan chose me!
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Japan kept their borders closed for most international travelers until the end of 2022.
In Fall of 2022, I had a friend reach out about planning a 3-week honeymoon to Japan. This was right after they opened their borders back up. I had never booked a trip to Japan before; heck, no one had booked it for years! I dove into learning as much as I could as quickly as I could. I truly wish I could go back and rebook that first trip (or even the first ten trips!) because I would do them very differently!
After that sweet couple traveled to Japan in March 2023, I started posting about Japan trips on TikTok. The requests started coming in. I received my Advanced Master Japan Travel Specialist certificiation in May 2023, and the requests REALLY started rolling in! Again, I never necessarily wanted to specialize in Japan travel. It just kind of happened, so I decided to really dive into it!
As much as I love American-branded hotels (I’m looking at you, Marriott!), I took it upon myself to really dig in and learn about the Japanese hotel brands. I researched them until I was blue in the face. I started reading guide books cover-to -cover. Instead of completing the trainings with cruise lines and all inclusive resorts like my fellow travel agents, I spent my time learning everything I could teach myself about Japan while also trying to build business relationships with those properties and companies. Yes, the language barrier and significant time difference made it hard, but I have made some incredible connections!
At the beginning of 2024, I was invited by the Japan National Tourism Organization to visit Japan as their guest. What a huge honor! I bought my flights, packed my bags, left my sweet kids, and used my passport for the first time. Yes, that’s right - I had never used my passport until I went to Japan! I stayed in six hotels in six nights while I was there and toured the country with 7 other travel agents. It was an absolutely amazing experience for me to actually see all of the things that I had been learning about and actually go to the hotels that I had been booking for my clients.
In the fall of 2024, I was once again invited to visit Japan, this time as a guest of the city of Yokohama. After a wonderful 4 days, I was able to explore Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyo Disneyland Resort on my own. What an amazing experience!
I have booked nearly 100 trips for clients to Japan. When I say it’s my specialty, I truly mean it! The amount of random (and sometimes useless?) knowledge about traveling to Japan that is stuck in my brain is overwhelming. But gosh - I sure do love creating these custom trips for my clients!
October 2024, Gion, Kyoto