Ten years ago, Vanessa McGovern, Jennifer Cochrane and Meredith Calloway co-founded Gifted Travel Network (GTN). The host agency was born out of the Global Institute for Travel Entrepreneurs (GIFTE), a travel business coaching and education company.
Over the last decade, the host agency has cemented its place in the luxury space, and has continued to place a special emphasis on travel advisor training and education.
Here, McGovern, who is now GTN's chief sales and marketing officer, shares with us the evolution of the brand, why she believes agent education should go beyond products and destinations, and what members can expect from the company in the months ahead.
In 2023, GTN is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Tell me about the evolution of the network.
The story of Gifted Travel Network is also the story of the Global Institute for Travel Entrepreneurs. The acronym for that is “GIFTE,” which is why we started the host agency and then called it Gifted Travel Network. It has changed so much in the last 10 years. One minute, we're working out of [CEO] Jen [Cochrane]'s house in her spare bedroom on furniture from Habitat for Humanity with one employee. Now, we're 28 employees. As I reflect back, I see how we’ve evolved in the host space and what we've learned in terms of how to support travel advisors who want a profitable, thriving business.
GTN got its start in education and coaching. Why is training such a key focus of the company’s strategy?
At the heart and soul of Gifted Travel Network is our call to elevate travel business education. We were business coaches in the travel space before starting a host agency. One of the things that drives me crazy about the industry, and I've been very vocal about this, is that the barrier to entry is just simply too low. You need more regulations and licenses to cut somebody's hair than you do to take vacation dollars from somebody. And to me, that's a problem. If I could wave a magic wand, I would put licenses in place and more barriers to entry, [and the industry] would look different.
The barrier to entry is just simply too low. You need more regulations and licenses to cut somebody's hair than you do to take vacation dollars from somebody.
Right now, a lot of the education in the industry comes from what the partners provide. And we're so blessed with an industry where partners invest millions of dollars into their platforms to educate travel advisors, and that's a gift to us. The problem is that it’s just one piece of the puzzle.
There's not enough education on how to run a business and how to be a modern-day travel advisor. The rules of the road are changing every year. So GTN is committed to educating travel advisors through the lens of how to run a business. That’s what continues to differentiate us from other host agencies.
Your new Travel MBA program was created with new-to-industry travel advisors in mind. Can you tell me more about developing that program?
The Travel MBA program stands for Travel Marketing and Business Academy. It’s 12 months, and it includes a three-day, in-person element called Jumpstart, and the rest of it is delivered virtually.
We onboard in cohorts now, so Jumpstart takes place four times per year at our office here in Mooresville, N.C. We’ve got a beautiful training space for that. For three days, we stay high-level in terms of what advisors need to know to get going with their business. And then things get deeper once they get home. These modules are focused primarily on business-related topics; there are no modules that are about a product for a supplier. We cover every possible topic you could imagine in the 12 months, and it’s a Netflix-type situation where [advisors] can consume the content when they want to. There are also two group coaching calls that are available to our members on a weekly basis. And we have mentors who are travel advisors themselves.
Vanessa McGovern, co-founder and chief sales and marketing officer for Gifted Travel Network
Credit: 2023 Gifted Travel NetworkWe do encourage advisors to start selling right away if they feel comfortable, especially for those coming in with a built-in network. We had a Travel MBA advisor last year who joined the program in October, and within three weeks of joining, sold a $75,000 Ritz-Carlton Yacht booking. She just completed Travel MBA, and she’s already in our Top Producers’ club.
What booking trends are you seeing from GTN advisors?
We definitely see a trend of travelers wanting to go back to places that they have already been to, that they felt comfortable with, including Italy, France and the U.K. These are perennial destinations, those that Americans have typically already been to, but they just were longing to go back to that magical destination that they had known.
But what I see as the next wave is that [these clients] will start looking at new destinations that might not have been on their radar that they want to explore.
As you can imagine, the pandemic and the health scare amplifies the things you wish you would've done. So, a lot of people are wanting to really check off the thing they’ve always wanted to do.
What else is coming down the pipeline for GTN, and what do you think the next few years brings for the company?
We just charted an AmaWaterways ship for our Group Travel Symposium [just prior to ASTA’s River Cruise Expo]. And we are repeating it for 2024 and have signed the contract with AmaWaterways. We've already pre-sold 50 spots on that, so we're well on our way to selling out.
We also have our annual conference in Mykonos. We have about 60 advisors going; we're happy about that, and we'll do some celebrating for our 10-year anniversary at that conference.
But the big celebration will be at the gala on Oct. 11 here in Mooresville, N.C. And then another thing we have planned throughout the year is finalizing a partnership package for our preferred partners, which includes them in a 10-year anniversary package; we will spotlight certain partners and certain members in the coming months leading up to the gala to tell the story of the partner and our members. We're embarking on a marketing campaign for that, which will basically crescendo to the gala in October.
We also just did a complete restructure of our membership model, redoing all of our contracts and changing our pricing structure. What we have to look forward to now is leaning into the educational component of Gifted Travel Network because, before the membership restructure, advisors could pay — on top of their hosting fees — an extra amount to access the additional educational services that we offer outside of the Travel MBA program. Part of this new membership restructure is that it's not optional anymore. It's embedded in our fees, which means everybody has access to the same programs and the same educational resources, making it easy and equitable.
Community is a core pillar of GTN’s business model. What does community mean to you, as a leader in the company?
One of my favorite quotes of all time is a Chinese proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.” And that is Gifted Travel Network. I say to members all the time, “We are your ‘other.’” The entrepreneurial journey is further amplified, and there's more joy when you surround yourself with people who are on a similar journey to you, and who you can have shared experiences with. And that has been my favorite part of the last 10 years.
