By Mike Foster/ If you’ve been in the travel industry long enough, you know what it feels like to carry out a role that keeps growing in every direction. One moment you’re unravelling a schedule change, then answering a late-night text, then explaining a loyalty perk, then reviewing cancellation terms, then sourcing a boutique hotel that still has the right room type in the right week.
The job has always required patience, curiosity, and a calm centre. But the role itself has changed – even if nobody officially announced it.
This is not a story about losing something. It’s about recognizing the model we inherited and deciding what we want to build next.
The model we inherited – and made work for decades
Most of us were raised in a broad, flexible “sell what comes in” approach. Agencies needed reach. Distribution was layered. The advisor’s value was often measured in versatility: flights one hour, group tours the next, cruise cabins after that. If you could handle the volume and keep clients happy, you thrived.
That model worked, and for a long time. It created strong, resilient professionals who could juggle complexity, soothe frayed nerves, and solve messy problems quietly and well. It produced advisors who were part guide, part interpreter, part advocate, part travel-therapist.
The work was human; and it mattered.
Why the role is straining now
The pressure today isn’t simply more volume – it’s different expectations.
Airlines and cruise lines now treat every offering as a retail shelf of add-ons and bundles. Resorts segment rooms and perks with an almost surgical level of detail. Loyalty systems shape behaviour as much as marketing does. Duty of care, insurance clarity, and payment security are now part of every booking – whether we talk about them or not.
Meanwhile, prospects and clients come to you loaded with days of pre-search, reviews, videos, and recommendations. They don’t just want the trip to work. They want it to fit them.
And margin has to come from somewhere. Each layer in the chain takes a little: the technology platform, the wholesaler, the consolidator, the agency or host, the supplier, the advisor. When the chain is long, the advisor is often the one smoothing the experience without being fully compensated for it.
Longer chains also increase the risk of misalignment, delay, and misunderstanding. When layers shrink and relationships become more direct, more of the value – financial and relational – can stay where the real work is done.
A generalist can handle anything. But in a world where clarity, speed, and personal fit matter more, a generalist will have a hard time matching an expert.
What clients are truly buying
As I spoke of in an earlier column, travel agents were at one time an essential part of the distribution system. Travellers had few options to avoid us. They don’t come to us for access anymore – the internet gives them that.
They come for:
- judgement
- reassurance
- decisiveness
- help when things go wrong, and,
- the knowledge of how things ‘really’ play out on the ground.
They come to avoid the cost of being wrong. That means our value is not in being able to sell everything. It’s in being known for something.
The bridge begins with choosing a lane
This doesn’t require a grand declaration or a brand overhaul. It starts with noticing which trips give you energy – and which drain it. Which conversations feel natural. Which suppliers “get” you. Which clients recommend you enthusiastically, and why.
When selecting your niche (your lane), consider these key dimensions: who you serve (traveller type), where they go (destination), what they do (activities/experiences), how they travel (style or budget), why they travel (purpose), and optionally, which suppliers you partner with. The most distinctive niches often combine two or more of these dimensions.
Senior skier groups to Switzerland; budget-conscious women who love hiking; European river and small ship journeys; milestone travel; active couples who want culture and quiet. Any of these can be a lane. It’s direction. A place you can go deeper, faster, and with confidence.
As you build in that lane:
- supplier conversations get sharper
- your proposals get tighter
- your value becomes clearer, and
- margin has room to live and grow again.
Tools don’t replace us – they refine us
The point of smarter tools is not to automate the advisor out of the equation. It’s to change which parts of the job take time.
Automation can:
- condense incoming information so you only see what needs attention
- catch the rules that trip travellers up if they’re missed
- surface your own past notes and supplier knowledge at the right moment
- produce first drafts so you spend your time making judgement calls, not typing
The value is not in having tools. The value is in using them is that they make space for better decisions and to protect your judgement – the part the client is actually paying for.
But it cannot replace what only a human can sense:
- know that “ocean view” matters less than the breeze through an open terrace
- catch the subtext when a couple asks for “something different this year” – a hint they need reconnection, not adventure
- recognize when “celebration” means “he finally finished treatment”
- write the handwritten note that turns a good trip into a lasting memory
Technology reveals the choices; we make the trip make sense.
The future is not advisor or automation. It is advisor with automation – and clearer judgment at the centre.
The work ahead
In the next articles in this series, we’ll walk that bridge step by step. We’ll look at what early specialization looks like in real life – not as a marketing slogan, but as a rhythm of work. We’ll follow an advisor in 2027 who has just begun declaring a lane. Then we’ll step ahead to 2029 and 2030, to see how deeper supplier alignment, better client fit, and cleaner operations change everything from margins to energy to satisfaction.
The goal is not to become someone new. It is to become a clearer version of who you already are.
We are not stepping away from the work that defined us. We are evolving it – with intention, with clarity, and with dignity.
The model is shifting. We can lead that shift – and shape a role that is more rewarding, more sustainable, and fairer.
And better – for your clients, and for you. It’s not theoretical, it’s already in motion. Let’s step into it deliberately.
(After nearly 50 years in the Canadian travel industry, Mike Foster recently retired as the president of Nexion Travel Group Canada, having also served with ACTA, TICO, and other industry organizations, as well as teaching tourism at Fanshawe College in London, Ont., during his distinguished career.)
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