This article is part of our Travel Business Startup Guide—a curated list of articles to help you plan, start, and grow your travel business!
If you’re starting a travel business, you might be a little overwhelmed. After all, the travel and tourism industry is vast, spanning everything from luxury hotels to transport services, and plenty of industries in between.
To help you sift through the information, I’ve put together a list of excellent resources that you can use while you start and grow your travel business.
Do you like to learn via reading articles and blogs? I’ve picked out plenty of options for you. Prefer listening to podcasts? I’ve got you covered. No matter how you like to learn, there is bound to be a resource here that will help your business evolve and grow.
Associations and industry resources
CCRA: The Travel Commerce Network
The Travel Commerce Network is packed with information for industry professionals, including webinars, local chapter meetings, and familiarization trips, which guide agents through locations in order to give them a better sense of how to provide great trips for their clients. They also have a CCRA Travel Agent Blog, which has a whole section on travel agent education and provides plenty of useful articles on how to make your travel agency as successful as possible.
Travel Professional Community
If you’d like to network, share experiences, and learn from others in the travel industry, check out the Travel Professionals Community. Once you sign up, you’ll get access to their member’s forum, as well as blog posts and information about upcoming events.
PRSA’s Travel Industry Resources
Are you interested in joining a trade association (such as the Cruise Line Industry Association) for networking purposes, or perhaps you’d like to find out how to get in contact with the best hotels at your clients’ destinations? The Public Relations Society of America has put together a fantastic list of resources for travel industry professionals, which includes industry associations, hotel and lodging resources, and much more.
News and blogs
Travel Industry Wire
If you’re looking for travel industry specific news, Travel Industry Wire has you covered. This website collects important news stories that impact the travel industry across a variety of sectors, from changing technology to international travel trend reports.
TNooz Blog
TNooz focuses on resources, data, education, and information for the travel and tourism industry, and their blog contains tons of great articles that will help you with the process of starting and running your travel business. If you’re not sure where to start, check out Travel Email Surveys Strike a Chord with Older Generations, and Travel Apps Lag Behind Mobile Web for Finding Travel Information.
Epperly Travel
Epperly Travel is a luxury travel agency, with their website serving both as a means of connecting with clients and also as an informative blog. Their blog includes client testimonials and narrative blog posts from the Epperly folks themselves, which give an insider’s look at the locations they visit. Check this one out for a behind-the-scenes peek at great locations from a travel agent’s perspective, and learn from their client feedback.
The Luxe Travel
The Luxe Travel is the perfect mixture of travel industry content and personal travel content, as it focuses on curating information on the luxury travel market, including destinations, hotels, transport, and more. If your niche is luxury travel, make sure to check this one out.
The TrustYou Blog
This company runs a great blog focused on the travel industry itself, covering details like industry news and roundups of the latest travel industry tech. Additionally, TrustYou’s products are worth looking into if you’re looking for help managing your social media presence and positive reputation as a travel business.
Classe Touriste
If you’re looking for hidden location gems, Classe Touriste should be your go-to blog. While Classe Touriste is a pretty straightforward travel blog and is not run by industry professionals, it’s a great place to get inspiration when it comes to creating unique experiences for your customers.
Podcasts
The Home Based Travel Agent Show
If you are a home-based travel agent, this one will be right up your alley. This podcast includes advice and stories from expert guest speakers, and covers a range of topics related to running a home-based travel agency. The Home Based Travel Agent Show has over three hundred episodes, so if you’re an auditory learner, you’ll have plenty of great content to work through.
Travel Business Success: Helping Tourism Professionals Realize Their Dreams
With varied topics covering everything from travel hospitality, starting an adventure travel business, and travel liability insurance, this podcast is packed full of information. Host “Tourism Tim” also has a corresponding website, so be sure to check that out as well.
Tourism Marketing Podcast
Host Holly Galbraith features plenty of guest experts on her podcast, which covers the ins and outs of tourism and travel marketing. Topics include using social media to your advantage, mobile marketing, travel blogging, and much more. Boasting 50 episodes, this podcast is packed full of information and is a great resource if you need help marketing your business.
If you’ve checked out these resources and are eager to dive in and start plotting out your travel business strategy, be sure to check out my recent article, 7 Revenue-Boosting Strategies for Your Travel Business. If you’re just starting out, my how-to guide on starting a travel business may be more your speed, and check out our library of free travel and tourism industry sample plans.
Briana is a content and digital marketing specialist, editor, and writer. She enjoys discussing business, marketing, and social media, and is a big fan of the Oxford comma. Bri is a resident of Portland, Oregon, and she can be found, infrequently, on Twitter.
