Newspaper article on us when we began to garner some local and national attention.

For The First Time In History, More Than Half Of U.S. Travel Agents Are Home-Based

According to a recent article in Travel Market Report, for the first time in history, more than half of U.S. travel agents are home-based.

I find it interesting how the business world is continually morphing, and in particular, how decades-old business paradigms are shattered on nearly a daily basis.

Heck, ten years ago, we all thought travel agents were a dead and forgotten industry.  Little did we know that the travel agent of old would turn travel advisor, open home-based businesses, and experience one of the most remarkable comebacks in recent business history.

I can tell you that while Carol and I decided a number of years ago to forge a new path in our lives, we had absolutely no idea that we would give birth to a new and vibrant travel business.

If you remember, the 2008 stock market crash had decimated nearly half of our retirement assets.  Carol and I had planned and saved for decades to pull this off, and this was a real blow to our plan as we were just two years into our early retirement.  OUCH!

After sucking my thumb for a bit (Carol says a long time), we decided to see if we couldn’t launch a business in the travel world that would allow us to create a new income and allow us to continue the travel we had dreamed of for decades.

Roaming Boomers, Crystal Cruises Alaska 2017

In 2010, we launched The Roaming Boomers website.  We saw that there was a massive shift occurring in the way the public was getting their travel information and we decided to take a leap of faith and start our own travel blog targeted towards the baby boomer traveler.

In just a few years, we had hundreds of thousands of boomers reading our articles each year, and remarkably, there was an overwhelming cry from our readers wanting help with their travel planning.

Therefore, in 2014, Carol and I launched Roaming Boomers Travel Services.  A full-service travel agency that we operate right out of our home.  We figured that because folks were interacting with us via the Internet and telephone, there was no sense in incurring the expense of a traditional brick-and-mortar office in some strip mall.

And you know what really boggles our minds?  In just three short years, our home-based travel agency has blown its way into the top 10% of all travel agents, and it looks like before the month of January is over, we’re very likely to have $450,000 in travel bookings for the month. While I don’t know this for certain, we’re told that those in the top 10% of travel agents do $1 million of sales in a year, and we just did nearly half that in one month.

Can you see why our minds are blown?  Remember, we were of the belief that travel agents were a dead and forgotten institution of the past.  And here we are, six years from starting a website that no one had ever heard of, to having a vibrant and growing travel business.

Who’d a thunk?

So, as we’ve said many times in the past, Carol and I are very thankful.  Thankful to have found a new business that incorporates our love of travel.  Thankful to the readers of our website.  Thankful to our travel agency clients.  Thankful to live in a country where such a thing is even possible. Thankful that God has created a beautiful world for us to explore.  And I’m particularly thankful for my bride of 31 years who is my daily companion in this unforeseen and remarkable journey.

In closing, we thought you might find it interesting to learn that the travel agency world is alive and doing very well.  And we further thought you might find it interesting that over half of today’s travel agencies are actually home-based and that they are contributing untold billions in bookings each year.

Moral to the story?  If you’re not already working with one of today’s new breed of travel advisor, perhaps it’s time you took a few minutes to chat with one of them to see what the fuss is all about.  Maybe, just maybe, your paradigm will change and you’ll find a new travel advisor in your corner giving you advice, travel clout, and saving you a lot of time, money, and hassle.

And now, here’s a shameless commercial plug…

We would love the opportunity to share the benefits and value we might bring to your future travel planning.  To learn more, call our travel agency at (480) 550-1235, or use our convenient online information request (click here) and we’ll reach out to you. Thank you, and we look forward to serving you.
 
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