NEW YORK -- In its first three years in operation, host agency Fora Travel has become home to more than 5,000 travel advisors who actively book each month, completing $500 million in sales since 2021.
A lot of them are part-timers. And that is by design.
Fora's mission, said co-founder Evan Frank in an interview in October, has always been to "onboard the next generation of travel advisors."
That goal does not include attracting advisors already working with other agencies, he added, but is to bring "new people into the industry, arming them with community, and tech, and training, and support, partnerships. All things you need to build a business, and then watching them thrive."
Co-founder Henley Vazquez said it's imperative that travel-selling careers be accessible to more people, and she believes the industry has walled itself off from some who would thrive as advisors.
"The industry will only remain a certain size if you only say a certain kind of person can come in," she said. "We talk around this a lot, but we don't necessarily break it down to really what it means to become a travel advisor in a traditional manner, which is, you've got to quit your other full-time job. You don't get paid until the travel that you booked has actually happened."
In short, she said, it requires a person with "quite a bit of financial security."
Indeed, Travel Weekly's Travel Industry Survey shows a strong correlation to length of time in business and salary earned: This year's survey found that among advisors in business two years or less, 74% earned a salary of less than $25,000; at the 3-to-5-year mark, that percentage drops to 47%; at six to 10 years in business, it decreases to 32%.
Vazquez believes barring those without financial security results in "a lack of diversity" in the industry, one of the reasons Fora has always been open to part-timers.
"And what I want is lots of people to be able to come in, because then I think we can service a lot of different kinds of travelers," she added.
Fora's quick growth shows that its model is attractive to many advisors: Live Forum, its annual conference, drew about 40 advisors two years ago around the agency's first anniversary. This year it drew about 500 advisors and 250 suppliers.
Vazquez acknowledged that the industry at large has questioned Fora's approach.
"Certainly there's some suspicion of anything that's new," she said. "Usually when people actually have a conversation with us, we're always so open to answering any questions, then that changes it. But I think anything new that comes along, there will be people who question it."
Virtuoso's vice president of global member relations, Cheryl Bunker, said of the host agency, a Virtuoso member, that its goal to bring new professionals into the industry who may lack knowledge about travel advising does not mean they lack passion or connections.
"By tiering levels of advisors, they can assess where an advisor is in their career trajectory and where they ultimately want to be, then customize training and other assets to help them become successful," Bunker said.
What Fora offers
Fora's offerings have grown to include a booking platform, lead-generation program, air desk, training and payments, including a commission collection service. In addition to a certification program and recorded training, the host offers 20 hours of free, live training each week.
Since its founding, Fora has introduced three levels of affiliation: a basic level, Fora Pro and Fora X. At the basic level, Frank said, advisors have less access to things like suppliers and resources outside of Fora's platform (like Virtuoso resources). It's a tactic designed to enable people to try on travel advising as a career but ensure that the advisors Fora positions in front of the industry are at a more professional level. The Fora X top-producers level, home to about 120 advisors, carries benefits like advanced business coaching and access to fams and industry events.
Those advisors do more than $500,000 in sales annually, while the 700 Pro tier advisors average $100,000 to $500,000 in annual sales.
"This training wheel, sort of sandbox environment is actually the best way to train the future Pros and Fora X advisors," Frank said.
Despite some industry critique of its model, Vazquez and Frank said that suppliers have embraced the host and that they routinely hear comments on their advisors' professionalism.
Suppliers also appreciate that Fora can support a variety of a company's brands, from lower end to luxury.
The agency has inked an exclusive agreement with Michelin's Tablet Hotels. Brian Harney, head of distribution of hotels for Michelin Experiences, said he appreciates how technology-forward Fora is, noting that integrating Tablet's selection of boutique hotels into Fora's advisor portal took only weeks. Following that integration, bookings from the agency tripled. He also praised the agency for its level of communication with advisors.
"It's been a lot easier to engage Fora agents than other agencies, strictly because they have such a good communication network that they can use to actually talk to all the people that are joining the platform," Harney said.