I'm Just Going to Believe that This Can Work, with Sue Kasmar (California)

My guest today is Sue Kasmar, from Santa Barbara California. She’s been in the travel industry since 1979, starting her career as a ticket agent for a local airline. Then she moved on to Corporate Travel for an agency in her hometown, then on to leisure advising. After battling over one too many $12 differences in Mexico or Hawaii packages, she began to feel like at that time it would be impossible to make a good living at being a travel agent. Then in 1994 she answered an ad from a Travel Executive looking for a Personal Assistant. It was as if the ad was written for her. That’s when she joined forces with a Virtuoso agency and learned the nuances of arranging travel for the very affluent From there, everything changed … and for the last 20 years, Sue has enjoyed a very nice living doing exactly what she loves, orchestrating her client’s travel dreams.  Today Sue’s agency, by the same name, is a full member agency of the preeminent luxury travel consortium, Virtuoso. As is my agency. We're not tethered to a larger host agency. We each operate independently, with our own credentials, our own IATA numbers, our own metrics of success, and our own ways of doing business … uninfluenced. It’s a topic that isn't discussed nor encouraged in our industry. When is it time to leave from an employee position within a larger travel agency, or a hosted Independent Contractor sat beneath a host agency tiered umbrella, and obtain your own credentials your own IATA #, and fly independently on your own. I hope you all enjoy this conversation, Thank you for being here.