Should Travel Advisors Book Budget Travel?

In 2009, my now-husband and I paid a total of $1,785 to go on Intrepid Travel’s nine-day Taste of China Southbound trip. We climbed the Great Wall, stood in awe of the Terracotta Army, ate instant noodles off the snack trolleys on overnight trains, perused trinkets of all kinds in Shanghai’s long-gone Dongtai Road Antique Market and left wanting to be forever friends with our local guide, Howard. To this day, it’s the most impactful trip I’ve taken — and for sure the cheapest, given its duration.

I wasn’t wise enough then to book with a travel advisor, and I think if someone had suggested I do so, I would have assumed advisors weren’t for me, a third-year teacher with tight purse strings. Of course, this isn’t true. In fact, in a recent Need to Know survey, conducted by TravelAge West last month, 84% of respondents say that no trip budget is too low to take on.

Budget bookings are foundational — even required — for many advisors aiming to build a strong and long-lasting travel business. Pitfalls and perks come with the territory, though. Here’s how a few travel professionals think about and plan budget travel.

Is "Budget" a Bad Word?

Most things in life are subjective. What you find beautiful, your neighbor may not. The same goes for how advisors think and talk about budget bookings. Victoria Reisinger, owner of Vacay Vibes by V, says she crafts her conversations carefully.

“I think the word ‘budget’ is a major buzzkill,” Reisinger said. “So, I try to spin it. Even on my client intake form, I use the phrase ‘price point’ instead.”

A good deal of Reisinger’s business today is romance travel, and she’s especially sensitive to the emotions around such bookings — weddings are happy, and the word “budget” is not, she says.

Rhonda Shumway, president of host agency Terra Mar Travel, avoids the word in her own way.

“I get a feel for what a client might spend when I’m qualifying them and asking how they’ve traveled in the past,” Shumway said. “What was their favorite trip? Where did they stay? What cruise lines have they sailed on? From there, I can kind of tell what they’re looking for, or what their budget is, so to speak.”

Do Travel Advisors Book Budget Trips?

Whether you beat around the “budget” bush or not, facts are facts: a lower priced trip equals lower commission. For Kate Thomas of Travel Pro Theory and North + Leisure, that’s enough of a guiding principle.

Thomas loves tracking data and uses her sales numbers to guide her business decisions. In 2017 and 2018, for example, she compared commissions earned for trips in Atlantic Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland. She found that — for roughly the same amount of work — she was bringing in an average of $805 profit for each Atlantic Canada trip, but $1,783 on average for an Ireland and U.K. vacation. So, she stopped selling Atlantic Canada. Then, around 2019, she instituted a minimum trip spend of $600 per person, per day, to further protect her revenue and business growth. Adding that minimum to her client intake form ensures transparency from the start.

“This is kind of a baseline trip that we can book and feel good about, with properties we can stand behind,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s our name on it, and I don’t think the more budget trip is worth the business risk.”

Conversely, advisors Ellie Frise Cave of Ellie’s Travel Bug and Alex Harmeyer of Travel Byrds — both newer to the profession — are committed to budget travelers and look at their requests as puzzles to be solved. Cave has a set of strategies she follows. She won’t book through a budget tour operator because she “can’t control the quality and consistency of the experience,” and while she’s connected to destination management companies of varying price points, the fact that they won’t show line item prices isn’t ideal for her budget clients, who often want to see the cost of every inclusion. Instead, she builds a-la-carte, FIT-style trips to keep trip totals lower.

Harmeyer, who’s been selling travel for less than a year, is booking affordable trips to Italy by leaning on mom-and-pop hotels in the country (they may be small, she says, but the level of service can be high), and Caribbean requests are keeping her busy, too. A recent one led her to book a long weekend at all-inclusive resort Lopesan Costa Bavaro in the Dominican Republic in March for a trio of girlfriends — their all-in budget was $2,000 total.

Transparent Talk Around Client Budgets

Jordana Izzo of Travelmation had $1 million in sales last year; her average trip cost was $4,200, and plenty of that business came from budget travelers. Whether they are booking a $1,200 weekend getaway or a $20,000 trip, Izzo says she gives each client the same care. But if a client appears confused about how far their dollars will go, she’s willing to have a transparent
budget conversation with them.

“There are great options for even the smallest budgets,” Izzo said. “Four-day cruises deliver the best value; Mexico and the Dominican Republic have a variety of resorts at different price points, and theme parks are still an option. It’s about setting expectations — they’re not going to be staying at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa [at Walt Disney World], but we can consider off-property options like Disney’s Pop Century Resort and All-Star Sports Resort.”

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Izzo is also a happy sharer of vacation deals, and she uses her Instagram account to blast them out. Recent vacation ideas she shared included three- and four-night stays at various Sandals resorts, all less than $2,350 total for two people (about $390 per person, per night). Other all-inclusive brands she looks to for good value include Breathless Resorts and Spas, Palace Resorts and Dreams Resorts and Spas.

The Potential of Budget Bookings

Improving at any skill or profession requires time and energy. A little faith in the payout of those efforts helps, too.

“As a new advisor, I have to do a lot more research than somebody who’s been in the business 20 years,” said Harmeyer of Travel Byrds. “As I go on, I’m confident that I will be able to handle the budget trips a lot quicker.”

Sara Jane Stroupe of Globetrot Travel Concierge follows a similar train of thought.

“It’s easy to assume that big spenders are the bread and butter of the industry, but some of my best and most loyal clients started with more modest budgets,” Stroupe said. “As their trust in me grew, they began planning and investing in those once-in-a-lifetime trips.”

Case in point: Not so long ago, Stroupe (somewhat begrudgingly) helped a client procure non-commissionable, two-day park tickets to Walt Disney World Resort. Despite the lack of compensation, she gave the client her “full attention, assisting with dining reservations, park planning, Lightning Lane strategies and all the usual extras.” A year later, the client contacted her for help in booking a multigenerational, land-and-sea vacation that included concierge-level suites on Disney Wish, club-level stays at the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa and VIP tours at the Disney parks. The trip total was $250,000.

Susie Flores of Countdown Travels joined the industry as a cruise expert in 2019, and she says budget travelers are an integral component to her growth strategy. To help handle all her booking inquiries, she now has three independent contractors under her wing; when a lower-cost trip request comes in that she doesn’t have the capacity to take, she passes it to them.

“Each booking is a learning opportunity,” she said. “My goal is to help them make money, and of course, I’m here to support them each step of the way.”

Another reason she embraces small bookings? Their unpredictable referral power.

“Just today, I booked two higher-end rooms on Celebrity Ascent for someone who was referred to me — that’s a very nice commission,” she said. “If your mindset is, ‘I’m only going to book Silversea, Azamara or Viking,’ and you’re still trying to build your business, you’re going to miss out on a lot of opportunities.”

How Executives Look at Budget Travel

Jim Tedesco, vice president of sales at ALG Vacations, wants every traveler to have access to memorable experiences — and he knows that often begins with the advisor-client relationship. Advisors might cut back on room nights to save clients money, or book ALGV’s competitively priced ENVFs (exclusive non-stop vacation flights) that still come with good commission rates. But nothing beats thoroughly qualifying the client.

“The budget-friendly traveler just doesn’t want surprises,” Tedesco said. “You have to have the conversation that figures out what they’re looking for, then help them find it.”

A budget client aiming to explore a destination — with some activities booked, but ample down time to wander independently — might pair well with an Exoticca tour, says Mike Quinto, vice president of North America for the brand. When travelers opt for the company’s Charm category of hotels (well-vetted, three-star properties that are often a bit outside of the city center), trip costs are great. A nine-day Portugal tour in May, at the Charm level and inclusive of air, was listed for $1,999 per person at the time of publication, for example. 

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Exoticca’s Charm product makes up about 70% of its portfolio, according to Quinto, and 60% of bookings from travel advisors are in that category — proof that the budget niche is in high demand and advisors would do well to dig into it.

It is imperative that we remember that budget travelers are often the pioneers of travel.

Claire Hanney, managing director of travel experiences for The Travel Corporation’s Tour Brands portfolio (which includes value-driven brands such as Contiki and Costsaver, says budget travelers are her “heartland.” She was in the niche herself — about 25 years ago, she booked a Contiki tour and never looked back — and she hopes travel industry professionals never discount an explorer with less expendable income.

“It is imperative that we remember that budget travelers are often the pioneers of travel,” Hanney said. “They are willing to go places that other people might not go, and they’re really keen to pursue experiences in their own way.”