Staying relevant in the travel industry requires both a willingness to listen and the ability to respond. According to Melissa DaSilva, deputy CEO and chief sales officer of TTC Tour Brands, that’s a course of action her company has taken numerous times, and with much success.
For example, in 2024, Insight Vacations launched women-only tours — the trips were curated by women, for women, and built in response to growing demand for the travel type. The brand has also entered trending destinations such as South Korea, Sri Lanka and Patagonia. And this April, river vessels Trafalgar Reverie and Trafalgar Verity sailed their inaugural voyages, marking Trafalgar’s debut into the buzzing European river cruise market. That’s a lot of action in a few short years.
“The travelers we serve are curious, and they are always looking for something new,” DaSilva said. “You have to earn their loyalty year after year. That means listening closely, paying attention to what people are asking for and being willing to move quickly when we see a real opportunity.”
DaSilva and her team see opportunity around every corner. Here’s what else travel advisors should know about Insight Vacations and Trafalgar now, especially when it comes to small-group travel.
What makes small-group travel such a special niche?
This type of travel genuinely excites me. Travelers rarely take the same type of vacation more than once a year, and that tells you something important about what they’re looking for: They want something different, and they want to be surprised. Small-group tours offer that. For example, on Insight Vacations’ Wonders of Japan itinerary, guests explore the artistry and philosophy of bonsai through an intimate experience with a bonsai master apprentice at the Bonsai Museum in Tokyo.
New small-group trips from Insight Vacations and Trafalgar give advisors more opportunities to sell two names their clients already know and trust, while also reaching entirely new audiences who might not have considered our brands before.
Insight Vacations and Trafalgar prioritize ‘Purpose-driven travel.’ What does that mean?
On nearly every one of our itineraries, we include at least one Make Travel Matter experience. These are purpose-driven moments directly aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and designed to be exciting for travelers and beneficial to the communities we visit. What I find particularly compelling is how well these experiences fit within small-group travel. The format is more intimate and more immersive, and it closely reflects what this type of traveler is actually looking for.
A great example of this is on Insight Vacations’ Country Roads of Portugal trip. Guests travel by boat through the protected Ria Formosa lagoon alongside a marine biologist; as they go, they learn about the region’s biodiversity and traditional aquaculture. Then they visit a working oyster farm, meet local producers and taste fresh oysters straight from the source. It’s an exciting and personal moment, and it leaves something positive behind in the community. That, to me, is what it really means to “travel with purpose.”
Why do you think travelers are looking for experiences like these?
I think it comes back to something pretty simple: Travelers are becoming more intentional about how they spend their time. For clients who have already seen the iconic sights, a small-group tour offers more flexibility, a slower pace and an even deeper connection to the destination through experiences that larger groups cannot access, such as a private viewing of the Otzi Iceman, a 5,300-year-old mummy kept secure in a small museum room in Northern Italy, or having the catch of the day with a local Basque fisherman and his family.
The travel advisor is essential here. Every traveler is different. The advisors who ask the right questions early and really listen to what someone is looking for are the ones who make the match that turns a good vacation into something truly memorable. We rely on our travel advisor partners to make those matches, and to educate us on how they do it, so we can continue to build itineraries for different types of travelers.
