ASTA Global Convention Education Sessions

Many lessons were learned from the 2020 pandemic, including legal language that every travel advisor should know and understand when servicing their clients. Learn what legal documents you need to protect services fees from chargebacks, best practice disclosures, recommended documentation management tools, and more.

The events of the past year have left many advisors with the need to take a deep look at your business. This includes whether to create a niche, tweak the one you have or even change your niche altogether. In this session, we will talk with advisors who have very focused niches and how they are cultivating their niche for business recovery. Plus, we will scratch our collective brains with a group exercise to help you explore if you have a new niche ready to add to your portfolio.

Whether you call it green travel, eco-travel, or sustainable travel, if you’re trying to travel more lightly and in an eco-friendlier way, sustainable travel is here to stay. As travel rebounds, you will see a plethora of authentic travel experiences, meeting local people and discovering unique cultures and customs. These options include everything from off the grid to high-end boutique luxury trips. As more travel companies join the B Corp movement (a global movement of pioneering companies that are using their business as a force for good.), travel advisors are perfectly positioned to help their clients with amazing travel options and to be part of this growing movement.

Hungry for knowledge? Nourish your greatness through one of our Learning Luncheons! These lunch and learn presentations will give you insight into destinations, products, and services from some of the leading suppliers in travel.

Presented By: 

Hungry for knowledge? Nourish your greatness through one of our Learning Luncheons! These lunch and learn presentations will give you insight into destinations, products, and services from some of the leading suppliers in travel.

Presented By: 

What questions should you ask yourself or others to determine if you or your company are using the best business model specific to you - especially important as we recover from impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. What are the various business models applicable to the agency community today? What steps should you take to determine if you or your company is using the best business model specific to you - especially important as we recover from impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic? 

 

In this session, you’ll walk away with an understanding as to why a consistent digital identity is important, how to find the money in your current database and how to use digital advertising to acquire new clients.

There's a lot that goes into being a travel advisor. Whether you're an Independent Contractor or front-line advisor for an agency, you're still in charge of managing a successful business. If you're newer to the travel advisor industry, within the last 5 years, we've got you covered with the business basics you need for success.

 

After this session, you'll not only walk away with the encouragement to keep going but you'll receive,

• a checklist of "must-haves" you need to run a successful business, including licensing, legal and banking, 
• personal and business branding tips to make sure you're staying relevant without losing your personality, and
• how to effectively qualify new prospects, so you're not wasting your time.

People are starting to travel again. Your customers are looking to you for guidance on health and safety protocols that are in place – and continue to evolve - for their chosen destination.

This session will provide you with insight and resources on how you can educate and advise your customers to ensure they have the right information and realistic expectations.

Hungry for knowledge? Nourish your greatness through one of our Learning Luncheons! These lunch and learn presentations will give you insight into destinations, products, and services from some of the leading suppliers in travel.

Presented By: 

This session will look at the pain points experienced during 2020 in the Booking, Rebooking, and Rebooking Again process.  Specifically, you’ll be provided resources to simplify the communication process and protect you and your clients in this electronic era. We will take a cursory look at inexpensive technologies -  like Voxer, WhatsApp, PandaDoc, Call Recording, Facebook Messenger, Zoom, Microsoft 365 & Teams and more - being used by advisors to communicate with clients as well as the preferred tools to protect the history of the transaction.

Posting on social media can be daunting and overwhelming. With social distancing still highly recommended, having a presence online is the most crucial place to be. In fact, the average U.S. adult spends 2 hours on social media a day, with 80% scrolling their feed via a mobile device*. 
 
In this session, we will do a quick dive into who, what, and where. Walk away feeling confident in adding (and refreshing) your social media strategy.

• What social platforms host the audience you're looking to target? 
• Is your personal voice shining through your content that your posting?
• What tools are available to help you post with ease?

This session will provide a framework for understanding multicultural marketing and how to target and attract African American, leisure travelers. The framework will address market potential, preferences, buying patterns, and other characteristics of selected racial and ethnic groups. Session participants will learn effective tactics to reach African American markets and best practices for creating a multicultural marketing strategy.

Join Jackie Friedman, Vicki Freed, Amanda Klimak, and Scott Wiseman as they host a discussion tackling two of the most important challenges at hand- increasing sales and resolving issues! As travel returns the challenges of the past year+ may continue to impact your business. Welcoming demand with a smaller staff and slim margins is a reality for many advisors, as is navigating challenges between client and supplier. Join this critical group discussion to learn how to leverage and maximize your BDM relationships to increase your bottom line and solve any problem that comes your way.

Travel insurance is more integral than ever and in this session, we will address important travel insurance information that advisors need to know as travel opens up in the post-pandemic world. Topics covered will include: 

1. The importance of offering insurance to every client and obtaining a signature for accepting or declining insurance with sample declaration forms provided;
2. An up-to-date review of the different types of insurance – CFAR vs. traditional, vs. emergency evacuation and more;
3. Credit card insurance and potential limitations of coverage;
4. U.S. Health insurance – what it does or doesn’t cover when traveling domestically vs. internationally;
5. The benefits and limitations of a group policy for group bookings; and 
6. The legal ramifications of not offering insurance or not getting a declination document signed.

Your expertise is priceless and your time is precious. As we transition out of the pandemic, even more effort and skill will be required for every trip and consultation. With an increased awareness of your real value, there’s never been a better and more important time to embrace fees. 

In this session, Nolan Burris, from Signature Travel Network, will walk you through the critical elements of making any professional fee program a winner. Then he will ramp it up and examine growing trends and progressive ideas that are working today. From service “packages” like bronze/silver/gold to annual subscriptions, you’ll learn strategies for success with fees in your own agency.

Forecasting/Adapting/Operating - Elements that will impact your decisions. What is your focus as you rebuild and strategize?  What are your customers now deeming to be the most important factors in order for you to capture their business?

Cultural heritage tourism, one of the fastest growing segments in the travel industry, is gaining momentum in the U.S. as destinations have the desire to engage local stakeholders who provide these rich, authentic cultural heritage experiences for travelers. Also, as a result of the heightened awareness about the Black experience in the U.S. and globally through the Black Lives Matter movement, Black history and cultural heritage tour itineraries are in demand and sought out by inbound travelers.

Join Stephanie M. Jones - a leading cultural heritage tourism thought leader, founder & CEO of the National Blacks in Travel and Tourism Collaborative, founder of Culture on Shore, the world's first global marketplace for cultural heritage tours + activities, and owner of Cultural Heritage Alliance Tours, the premier cultural heritage tour company in South Florida - as she guides session participants in a masterclass on leveraging and selling cultural heritage tour experiences.

As we start to emerge from the exaggerating effects of the pandemic, we know travel and the way we work have possibility changed for life. The way that we serve our clients, socialize, even go about our daily lives has been changed and we’ve been forced into a new way of living. With all that in mind, it’s no surprise that our confidence and our client’s confidence has taken a knock.

 

In this session, we will discuss how the rebuilding customer confidence really starts with you, the travel advisor. How to leave the past in the past and the steps you can take to rebuild your confidence so you can get out there and reestablish your business.

You know your product inside and out. Your brochures are beautiful, your slides are filled with the latest details and you are passionate about your brand. But the secret to inspiring travel advisors to remember and SELL your product takes something more than facts and figures. It requires engaging with your clients and connecting in a way that builds trust and excitement. 
 
Signature Travel Network’s Nolan Burris will share lessons learned from his two decades of life on the road as a professional speaker and presenter. Nolan will show you how to not only provide advisors with the information that they need but also how to form strong bonds with these important customers. You’ll learn successful presentation techniques, the common pitfalls to avoid, and how to circumvent and overcome those challenges that are unique to virtual meeting platforms and presentations. We’ll show you what makes successful virtual events so different from live workshops. 

Hungry for knowledge? Nourish your greatness through one of our Learning Luncheons! These lunch and learn presentations will give you insight into destinations, products, and services from some of the leading suppliers in travel.

Presented By: 

Hungry for knowledge? Nourish your greatness through one of our Learning Luncheons! These lunch and learn presentations will give you insight into destinations, products, and services from some of the leading suppliers in travel.

Presented By: