You Can Handle the Supplier Hold Queue. It’s the Tuesday Afternoon With No One to Call That Breaks People. Written By: WorldVia Travel Network Nobody put it in the job description. But if you’ve been a travel advisor for more than a year, especially as an independent, you know the feeling. It’s a Tuesday … Continue reading “The Loneliness Problem in Travel: Why Community Is the Benefit Nobody’s Talking About”
The Commission Percentage Is the Headline. Everything Else Is What Actually Runs Your Business. Presented by: Cruise Planners Choosing how to start a travel business can look surprisingly simple when opportunities are presented as percentages: 70/30, 80/20, 90/10, 100% commission with monthly fees or a royalty-based model. But those numbers do … Continue reading “Beyond Commission Splits: What New Travel Advisors Should Compare”
Written by HBTA Team
4,622 Passengers, One Spectacular Coastline, and a Few Honest Truths About Sailing Alaska on NCL Written By: Tom Ogg, Co-Founder and Co-Owner – Travel Professional NEWS Part 1 of 3 Alaska cruises are a favorite among travelers for all kinds of reasons, the wildlife, the jaw-dropping scenery, the shopping, the dining, and the chance to … Continue reading “Alaska Aboard the Norwegian Joy: A In-Depth Review – Part 1 of 3”
Written by Tom Ogg
The Commission Split Gets the Attention — The Back-End Support Gets the Business Built Travel is an appealing business for obvious reasons: the destinations, the relationships, and the satisfaction of helping someone take a long-awaited trip. Yet much of what determines whether a travel business can grow happens after the exciting part. Commission tracking, … Continue reading “Beyond the Commission Split: What Strong Support Looks Like”
Written by HBTA Team
“Dear Valued Customer” Is Not a Strategy — Here’s What Actually Gets Travel Emails Opened Written By: Tom Ogg, Co-Founder and Co-Owner – HomeBasedTravelAgent.com Part One Let’s be brutally honest with each other for a moment. If your current email marketing strategy consists of blasting “Check Out These AMAZING Cruise Deals!!!” to your entire contact … Continue reading “Creating an Email Campaign Strategy That Doesn’t Put Your Clients to Sleep”
Written by Tom Ogg
A Practical Guide to the Best Dedicated AI Travel Planning Apps for Home-Based Advisors Written By: Joanie Ogg, CTC, MCC – HomeBasedTravelAgent.com The Purpose-Built App All-Stars Beyond the general-purpose LLMs that we discussed in the last article, there is a wave of dedicated AI travel planning apps that have emerged, each with a specialty. Consider … Continue reading “Your New Best Employee Never Takes a Lunch Break (Or a Vacation) – Part 2”
Written by Tom Ogg
Contributed By: Nexion Travel Group There’s a persistent myth that host agencies just process bookings, but that framing misses what’s actually happening for advisors who partner with a host like Nexion: access to an entire business infrastructure they’d otherwise have to build alone. Think about what running an independent agency actually requires — … Continue reading “Beyond Booking: How Host Agencies Like Nexion Empower Travel Advisors to Build a Full-Service Business”
Written by HBTA Team
A Practical Guide to Travel Advisor Service Fees — What to Charge and How to Say It With Confidence Written By: Tom Ogg, Co-Founder and Co-Owner – FindaHostTravelAgency.com Let’s talk about the elephant in the room, or more accurately, the robot behind the chatbot. Service fees have been a hot-button issue in the travel industry … Continue reading “Travel Advisor Service Fees in the Age of AI – Why You’re Worth Every Penny (and Then Some)”
Written by Tom Ogg
July 6th, 2026 – In this episode of TPN Chat, Andy Ogg sits down with Cat Brask, Senior Director of Marketing for Northstar Travel Group’s retail events, for a candid conversation about why in-person industry events still matter more than ever — and what Cruise World, taking place November 4-6 in Fort Lauderdale, delivers that … Continue reading “TPN Chats: The Power of In Person Events and Cruise World 2026 with Cat Brask of Northstar Travel Group”
Written by Andy Ogg
We Were Skeptical Too. Then the Itinerary Came Back and We Stopped Exchanging That Look. Written By: Joanie Ogg, CTC, MCC – Travel Professional NEWS How travel agents can harness artificial intelligence to build stunning itineraries, impress clients, and maybe, just maybe, reclaim their weekends. Let me confess something. When a publicist first pitched us … Continue reading “Your New Best Employee Never Takes a Lunch Break (or a Vacation) – Part 1”
Written by Tom Ogg