by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 7:00 AM ET, Sun December 3, 2023
For the past decade, the format for the American Society of Travel Advisors’ annual global convention has remained unchanged.
And while that format, which included a significant focus on a trade show, along with networking and education events, worked well since it was first established back in 2013, this year the organization’s leaders decided it was time to update and reinvigorate its signature gathering slightly.
“We met as a staff right after legislative day and had a brainstorming session about what was going well and what we could improve upon,” ASTA’s President and CEO, Zane Kerby, explained during a recent interview with TravelPulse.“This is the biggest—or the second biggest—event we do every year, but we just weren’t satisfied with it.”
ASTA staff from nearly every level of the organization joined forces in what Kerby calls a “top-to-bottom” effort to tweak and rework the formerly-named ASTA Global Convention. The result is an exciting and updated offering that's now named The ASTA Travel Advisor Conference and includes a much heavier emphasis on education and a scaled-back trade show (which will be shortened from two days to just one.)
Here's a closer look at all that you can expect at this year's event. (Beyond just a new event name.)
Venus Williams will be Keynote speaker at ASTA Global Convention (Photo Credit: ASTA)
Top Notch Educators and Tailored Education Tracks
Education at the ASTA Travel Advisor Conference 2024 will hardly be a dry or run-of-the-mill affair.
This year's conference will bring together heavy hitters from academia, the business world, and beyond in an effort to appeal to a broader cross-section of advisors, while also providing attendees with truly meaningful and useful skills.
“We want attendees to walk out a better business person than when they walked in — whether that’s a better storyteller, marketer, or purveyor of your value as a travel advisor,” continues Kerby.
To accomplish that goal, ASTA made a pronounced effort to engage with academic leaders in particular when planning the new conference. The result is a slate of educational workshops led by individuals from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Harvard, and Arizona State. ASTA has also tapped a TED-talk speaker for this year’s conference and there’ll also be a master class with a top negotiator from the FBI who will share negotiation tips and tricks.
Another noteworthy change, the 2024 gathering also includes three distinct education tracks designed and tailored for travel advisors who may be at different phases of their careers.
The newly announced tracks include:
Cultivate: For advisors who may be newer to the industry.
Accelerate: For advisors focused on growth.
Innovate: For mid- to large agency owners and managers.
“This travel advisor conference is going to take new travel advisors and give them the education and tools to be great advisors. And it’s going to make great travel advisors even better and allow them to be better able to level up,” says Kerby.
And for the seasoned travel advisor or mid-to large agency owner or manager, the event will help them look at the bigger picture and expose them to new ideas and ways to innovate. That will include covering such topics as sales techniques, scaling sales processes, mitigating travel risks for clients, and leveraging technology to improve communication touch points, among many other options.
The conference will also include talks from plenty of travel industry heavy hitters as well including Chris Nassetta, president and CEO of Hilton, and one of the sports industry’s most legendary figures—Venus Williams.
If anyone can impart useful tips and strategies about maintaining focus and the steps to success, it is Venus Williams.
In reworking its annual travel advisors convention, ASTA reflected on its yearly River Cruise Expo. Kerby describes the expo as an event with a very clear offering and take-away.
“You know what you’re getting, you’ll see 10 or 11 ships, check out the rooms, see the amenities and supercharge your knowledge of river cruise brands,” he points out.
The goal for the reimagined travel advisor convention is to offer attendees the same value.
“What we've learned is that if you are really clear about what people are going to get when they walk out, then you have a really good chance of grabbing their time and attention,” concludes Kerby. “We want to make our global convention a can’t miss event on the calendar,” he says.
The 2024 ASTA Travel Advisor Conference will take place May 29-31 at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas.
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