These Advisors Have Built Legacy Agencies — Here's How

Travel advisors are a hardworking bunch, but like any professional who has dedicated years to their field, many look forward to a time when they’ll work less — or not at all — and play more. But what to do with the business they have loved and labored over, sometimes for decades?

In some cases, passing the books down to a family member or close colleague makes good sense, and perhaps especially so if the alternative is to shutter completely. But handing a business over to a new owner is no small feat, according to Jeffrey Ment, a travel law attorney and managing partner of Ment Law Group.

“The legacy model is very difficult to actually implement, because it requires that your children, or someone else, have the skills, interest and ability to take over — which isn’t always the case,” Ment said. “Then, if they are going to carry on your business, some version of succession planning is required. For example, it’s often helpful if they’ve worked with you for a little while — a transition phase that requires the parent to stay involved.”

If done right, carrying the torch of a successful business has advantages for both parties. The new owner may not pay much up front, for example. Ment has seen legacy agencies transition through multiyear, commission-split plans; by the end of the decided term, the original owner is fully retired and the new one is at the helm.

“All in all, this can be great,” Ment said. “The next generation is getting a deal, for lack of a better word, and the original owner is getting the emotional benefit of knowing their company continues with someone they trust and love.”

A smooth and triumphant transition takes time and dedication. Here are the stories of four agencies currently on the journey.

Unique Excursions With Bear

Kathleen Klein feels like she’s been building trips her entire life. After her father, Steve Kuznik, beat cancer when she was just 3 years old, he adopted a “you-only-live-once” attitude, and his love for travel meant the family was on the road as much as possible.

Eventually, Kuznik’s other love — rugby — merged with his passion for travel. A longtime player-turned-coach, Kuznik started organizing rugby trips to Europe. His team would battle against clubs in Ireland, the United Kingdom and France, and he’d curate and lead tours based around the matches.

Requests for other trips soon followed. Kuznik planned travel for friends and acquaintances around his full-time job at an asphalt plant, and his daughter got involved in the business from a young age, helping book honeymoons and cruises. When she was 18 and in college, Unique Excursions by Bear was formally founded, with the name a nod to Kuznik’s rugby nickname.

One evening in 2009, Klein was at a bar in Buffalo, New York (where she is still based), and met Tim Herzog, the owner of a pioneering craft brewery in the city. When he revealed that he had never experienced beer culture in Germany firsthand, Klein called her father — who was also at the pub — over to say hello. The men locked eyes and greeted each other ecstatically; they had played rugby together in college.

“They hadn’t seen each other for 10 years,” Klein said. “That connection ended up becoming something giant. They’re about to do their 17th group trip with me.”

Klein was integral to the beer-inspired trips that launched from that serendipitous meeting. For years, she guided trips her father built. While he did the back-end travel agent work, she acted as tour director — being 22 years old and responsible for keeping track of 40 tipsy adults during Oktoberfest in Germany is something she’ll never forget.

Then, in 2019, Kuznik was diagnosed with cancer again. His treatment took him away from work, and then the pandemic paused most travel anyway. When he died in the spring of 2021, Klein had to make a decision. With guidance from her dad’s longtime host agency, Travel Planners International (TPI), she closed the original business and re-established it as Unique Excursions With Bear.

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“I thought I had known the business, but not having seen the back end of it was really difficult,” Klein said. “TPI was wonderful at transitioning me over in their system. That was a start. But the learning was the longest part.”

Because Klein had been client-facing for years, she had never talked to a supplier nor made an official booking. But she was determined to learn, and she had client trust behind her. She prioritized attending “Building Your Legacy,” a TPI workshop that helped her identify what business gaps she needed to fill. And she let clients know that she was still there for them, in her father’s place — but that she might need more time to finalize bookings.

“I didn’t want to let the legacy die,” she said. “Clients were calling me, so I knew there was a need, but I could only take on so much. The fact that people would wait weeks, sometimes even months, for me to figure out how to do something on my end was huge.”

At a pace she could manage, Klein got bookings moving. Kuznik’s business was locally rooted; Klein cites the closeness of the Buffalo community as one reason she was able to reboot the agency.

“I love this city and this community,” she said. “A lot of us are small business owners, and we support one another — I buy my cookbooks from the local cookbook store, and my beer from a local brewer. Community is a big thing here. I am happy and proud to say that most of my base is local, repeat clients.”

Jetset Travel

Mithat and Angela Armutcu opened Jetset Travel in Dover, Delaware, in 2005. The couple had just moved to the state, and when they noticed a general lack of local travel advisors, they decided to try their hand at serving the community. Angela had been an advisor in New York for more than 20 years, so she was confident she could rise to the occasion.

It wasn’t long before American Express approached them — the financial brand did not yet have a travel affiliate in Delaware, and Jetset’s sales were strong. The couple worked under the Amex umbrella for a dozen years; when it phased out its franchise structure, the couple joined Signature Travel Network, which it remains a part of today.

In 2019, Jetset opened a second storefront in Rehoboth Beach; after the pandemic, the original location closed. Set on Delaware's busy Coastal Highway, Angela says the Jetset Travel team continues to excel at customer service, both in person and not. Walk-ins remain common, and that face-to-face time, or authentic personal connection, is what Angela believes keeps travel agents relevant.

“People still want to have a conversation with us, and to be serviced,” she said. “This is something we pride ourselves on.”

The couple’s daughter, Talia, learned about the business fresh out of college and continued her education throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, when cancellations were the norm and frustrated clients waited on the other end of every call and email. But Mithat and Angela had historical data to show that the business had indeed grown since its inception, and they suggested Talia could lead it into the future.

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Six years in, Talia has garnered her own clientele and is an integral part of the Jetset team. Looking back, she feels lucky that the opportunity was there, and that travel advising incorporates some of the skills she was hoping to hone professionally.

“I’m a good talker, so I felt I would do well in sales or event planning,” she said. “But I wasn’t sure if working as a travel agent for my parent's business was what I wanted to do at first. Once I started to see what they did day by day, I understood that it hit a lot of the things I was always interested in.”

At 28 years old, Talia also sees that she has the power to influence others, and to show off the valuable work advisors do. She’s getting married this year, as are many of her peers. In fact, she recently planned the honeymoons of three of her friends, and post-trip feedback has been exceedingly positive. That has her buzzing, and grateful.

“My parents built this from the ground up, so for me to pass on it would’ve been a shame,” Talia said. “They have developed a really good set of clients and a trusted name. I’m excited to carry that on."

Her mom is delighted, too.

“Having her here means everything,” Angela said. “It means we didn’t work for so many years to build something and then have it go nowhere. I know that she’s the most competent and qualified person to make sure that everything gets done.”

Largay Travel

Scott Largay represents the third generation of his family to help lead Largay Travel. His great uncle, Roland Largay, founded the agency in 1969. When Scott’s dad, Paul, was (ironically) fired by his own father, who ran a metal fastener business, Paul joined Roland at the travel agency. Paul was a top salesman, but his father predicted automotive part sales wasn’t the right field for him in the long run. Sure enough, Paul landed where he was meant to be — he is currently CEO and CCC (chief culture curator) for Largay Travel. Scott is director of business strategy for the agency, having served as director of marketing for years prior to that.

Largay Travel’s foundation was built by Roland, who believed that travel advisors connected the world, and that planning trips that offered real opportunities for human connection was a great responsibility. He wielded his power from a brick-and-mortar shop in Waterbury, Connecticut (Largay headquarters are in the same town today), but now, Largay’s reach is significantly larger as a host agency with about 45 employees and 130 independent travel advisors.

Supporting those advisors is what initially intrigued Scott.

“I only wanted to be a part of the company if the company needed someone like me, and my interests were business strategy, marketing and public relations,” he said. “When Largay was starting to evolve into what is now a host agency, it made sense for me to come in. I wanted to enhance travel advisors’ ability to sell.”

Prior to joining the agency in 2014, Scott spent seven years in the film and television industry, and that experience helped steer his vision for Largay’s future. The advancements in marketing and technology he saw in Hollywood felt replicable. In fact, the first thing he did once officially at Largay was set up a production space at their headquarters, complete with first-rate film equipment.

“At first, I was looked at sideways,” he said. “But it was fun, because a lot of our advisors had never had that kind of experience. We were pioneers from a podcasting and video content standpoint. We had the ability to start getting really creative in the digital landscape.”

Scott would help record conversations between advisors and brand representatives, then share that content on social media or via email. The projects were a win-win — advisors got to showcase their insider connections and expertise, which built up their brand, and the industry players who joined them in the studio benefited from additional marketing. Scott also spent his days diving into emerging digital trends in business, such as keyword advertising, search engine optimization and targeted email marketing.

But as much as Scott has brought in new ideas, he’s learned from the old guard, too. He’s especially keen to carry on Largay’s community-minded culture, which Paul touts as their greatest asset.

“I am effectively the custodian of our community,” Paul said. “I interview every single person who potentially wants to join this organization, and I tell them up front: You have to be kind. You have to do the right thing. You have to practice humble confidence. You have to believe in community before the individual. You have to be a practitioner of the art of joyful commerce. If you are not aligned with those principles, it ends up being a bad marriage.”

The numbers seem to show that sticking to that belief system has resulted in measurable success. Largay has grown from about 40 advisors to 130 in the last decade. In order to maintain its supportive and tight-knit culture, the team doesn’t plan to grow beyond 150 advisors.

Scott’s goal is to help each one of those independent advisors build out their individual businesses, rather than just growing the agency by agent headcount.

“I think that’s a distinguishing factor between us and some other host agencies: We are extreme gatekeepers, because our advisors are brand ambassadors,” Scott said. “I’m here to show how better technology can elevate how they do business, and how they can communicate with people in a more targeted way. But the human connection and the relationship building is always going to be why we are here, and why we are valuable.” 

Sisterhood Travels

When Stacey Ray lost her husband to cancer in 2017, she gave herself permission to grieve. She put aside her part-time work booking group travel and stayed busy at her full-time job in the medical field. As time passed, she reflected on life without her spouse and came to a realization: Women of a similar age and in a similar position might want to travel, but find it unbearably overwhelming to do so alone. Rectifying this was the goal of Sisterhood Travels, which officially debuted in 2022 and focuses on group trips for women 45 and up.

“We grew exponentially overnight,” Ray said. “About halfway through that year, I knew this was going to grow to unbelievable proportions. And I thought: ‘If something happened to me, what would happen to the business?’”

Ray, who by now had left her medical career, knew that her daughter, Sami, would be an incredible candidate to take over Sisterhood Travels when the time came. The trouble was that Sami had zero interest.

“I can’t really explain why I was so averse to it,” Sami said. “Most of my life, I had no internal pull to entrepreneurship. And I didn’t love being the decision maker. My mom has always had this fierce entrepreneurial spirit, and she’s never afraid to try things.”

But a Sisterhood Travels trip to Iceland at the end of 2022 proved pivotal. Sami traveled with 32 women on the adventure.

“From our first day with all the ladies, I felt changed,” she said. “I couldn’t stop crying. Hearing their stories, and what they had overcome just to be there, makes me emotional to this day. I knew I wanted to be a part of what my mom had built.”

Sami had two feet in the medical world herself at the time, but the duo’s transition period began soon after Iceland. Ray got the ball rolling from a legal standpoint by finding an attorney experienced in legacy and succession planning. She put the business into a living trust so that Sami could step into her shoes immediately, if needed.

Sami says that learning the ins and outs of an agent’s job has been intimidating — but not enough to stop her.

“It has taken me a significant amount of time to become more comfortable,” she said. “Each day, I have to own every decision, but my confidence in doing so has increased exponentially. I know I can do it now, and that’s because of all the conversations and work that my mom and I have done together.”

Their opposing work styles make them an ideally balanced team, according to Ray. While Sami is a detail-oriented process person, Ray says she takes a more macro approach.

“I have these visions and ideas, and I need other people to execute them,” Ray said. “In the last few months, I have seen the visionary come out in Sami — but she goes about it in a much more deliberate way. And that may make her more effective.”

Now 66, Ray is considering retirement, though no official date is set. And Sami, at 39, is ready for the road ahead. This year, the pair estimates they’ll book about 60 Sisterhood Travels groups worldwide. In 2027, they project that number will hover around 75. Ray credits her daughter for much of that growth, and knows that big things are in store for her.

“Sami has made us a company I never dreamed of, because of her skill,” she said. “I did not bring her into this because she’s my daughter — the company means too much to me. I brought her in because I know her strengths, I know what she’s capable of, and I knew that she would make me proud and carry on this legacy.”