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Fees are a perennial hot topic among the travel agency community. On the season four opener of Trade Secrets, co-hosts Emma Weissmann and Jamie Biesiada delve into many different aspects of planning fees with Tiffany Hines, CEO and president of Global Escapes, and Cali Stein, a luxury advisor with Embark Beyond. They address normalizing fees, different ways to charge, whether every client should be charged the same way and more.
This episode was sponsored by Windstar Cruises.
Thanks to our friends at Montecito Village Travel for helping us source questions for this season.
Theme song:Sock Hop by Kevin MacLeod (License)
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Tiffany Hines (left) and Cali Stein
Credit: 2023 Jenn Martins
In This Episode:
8:22 - An overview on fee data from Travel Weekly’s survey
9:39 - How Cali and Tiffany charge fees
15:43 - How do agents normalize charging a fee for their services, both among clients and other advisors?
22:55 - What’s the right planning fee for a new travel advisor?
27:06 - How do you charge a fee for your services? How do you introduce the idea of a fee to clients?
29:32 - How do you handle charging fees for different kinds of clients, like referrals, for instance?
35:06 - Should booking fees be the same for every client?
36:10 - Are celebrity clients in a different tier than others?
38:40 - One advisor isn’t getting any takers with her fee – what gives?
44:57 - How do you actually collect and process fees from clients?
47:26 – How do you keep track of time if you’re charging an hourly fee?
Further Resources and Related Reading
Cali Stein: cali@embarkbeyond.com and Embark Beyond
Tiffany Hines: tiffany@globalescapes.com 706-548-4807 and Global Escapes
Travel Consulting Associates, Tiffany’s consultancy, and a free guide to charging fees
Trade Secrets Season 2 Podcast on Fees
The Last Resort podcast
Humans of Travel podcast
Travel Weekly’s fee survey
ASTA’s credo on charging fees
The Folo podcast's episode on fees
Ask a Question About the Podcast
If you're a travel advisor with a question about the latest travel news, trends, best business practices or more, please call our hotline and leave a message at 201-902-2098 or send an email to tradesecrets@travelweekly.com.
About Your Hosts
Emma Weissmann is the Managing Editor of TravelAge West, a print and online magazine for travel advisors based in the Western U.S. She is also the host of the Humans of Travel podcast, where she interviews notable individuals in the travel industry about their lives — the highs and lows that make them human.
Jamie Biesiada is a Senior Editor with Travel Weekly. She is an award-winning journalist, including being named the American Society of Travel Advisors’ 2019 Travel Journalist of the Year. Her roots are in community journalism, where she was the editor of several local newspapers and a regional entertainment magazine.
About the Show
Trade Secrets, a podcast from the editors of Travel Weekly and TravelAge West, is where travel advisors ask — and answer — questions. On each podcast, our editors will ask a veteran travel industry insider to join them and field listeners’ questions. Topics will range from business advice to industry trends, history and more — as long as it’s travel-related, we want to address it! Find Trade Secrets wherever you get your podcasts, or at www.travelagewest.com/podcasts/trade-secrets.
