If you want to be a full-time Luxury Travel Advisor but have no prior experience in the travel industry, the Brownell Mentoring Program is for you. This innovative one-year structured program is designed to bring entrepreneurial business people into the travel business. Mentoring participants spend a full year working directly with a team of professionals who specialize in a variety of areas: sales, customer service, marketing, product knowledge, vendor relations, Virtuoso products and services, managing daily work flow, professional development and continuing education, best accounting practices, and much more.
There has been a lot of buzz about the resurgence of travel advisors. But beyond questions about how to plan a trip with a travel advisor, more and more people with no background in the travel industry are asking “How do you become a travel advisor?”
There are many different training programs within the industry, but Brownell’s Mentoring Program is still the gold standard it the industry. Winner of the Virtuoso award for Outsdanding Mentoring & Talent Development our training program is for people who want to become luxury travel advisors. The first of its kind, this is a year-long intensive program that gives you all the tools and training to be a successful travel advisor.
You’re thinking about applying for the Brownell Mentoring Program, but is it right for you? Before you make a big career change, read these points to see if it will be a good fit.
During your year of thorough training you learn our tried and true processes and methods for a successful business. Training includes:
Sales best practices
Preferred supplier trainings
ClientBase database training
Marketing and social media
Virtuoso services
Professional development
Accounting tips
Sabre air and hotel training
GDS training
Inquire about the Mentoring Program.
Upon acceptance, head to the Brownell HQ office in Birmingham for a 5-day intensive training session.
Create and maintain a website and a travel blog.
Participate in monthly conference calls, trainings, and certifications.
Complete homework and assignments.
Graduate armed with extensive training and knowledge about the travel industry.
Think of it as a travel advisor degree from the very best Ivy League school. The Brownell Mentoring program is year-long training program with a celebrated history of developing successful travel entrepreneurs. The program gives you the education, resources, strategies, and business development tools to launch your own luxury travel agency.
If you are currently working full-time as a successful professional travel advisor and have an active client base with an annual volume of leisure sales between $300-$500k, check out our Hosting Program. If you are passionate about travel, ready to build a new career and a new business on a full-time basis as a self-employed entrepreneur, check out the Mentoring Program.
Assuming you meet all of the graduation requirements, you automatically continue under the Brownell Hosting Program, but with higher earnings and lower expenses.
You begin selling as soon as you complete the initial training sessions in Birmingham.
Participants in our mentoring program (mentees) are independent contractors who are self-employed and “hosted” by Brownell vs being employed by Brownell. Just as with any start-up business, you will be investing in a new career and while you will earn money by selling travel in your first year, you should have the financial stability to be self-supporting while your focus will be on investing in the development of your new company.
No. Launching a new business is a full-time job, and then some. We know from experience that part-time travel advisors have more gray hair, a higher-rate of hypertension, and are less profitable than full-time advisors. Ok, we haven’t proven that yet, but the anecdotal evidence sure does look that way!
Absolutely. Our past graduates are our very best promotional tool for the mentoring program.
You will have start-up costs and various business expenses, plus some travel and marketing expenses. We tell mentees to expect to break even in their mentee year, but many exceed their sales goals and earn a bit of money in their first year.
No, you will not have a single mentor…you will have a team of mentors who are deeply invested and passionate about helping you be successful. During your mentoring year, you will have direct access to world-class most business development, sales, operations, technology and marketing teams. You will also learn best practices and sales strategies from top travel executives from hotels, cruise lines, tour operators and ground-service providers across the globe.
We offer two classes each year: one in the winter, generally Feb, and one in the summer, generally July.
People who are interested in learning more about the Mentoring Program first must fill out the questionnaire, and then someone from our team will be in touch. If we think the person could be a good fit for the Mentoring Program, we will invite them to apply (typically about three months prior to the start of each class). Once a candidate is accepted, the pre-training work begins. We accept up to five people for each Mentoring Class.