Why You Don’t Need a Travel Agent — You Need an Advisor

Jeremy Rivera sits down with Ali Raymer, founder of Peace and Pearl Travel Co. — a nine-year travel-industry veteran and former Title I English teacher who launched her own agency the very week of this recording.

Ali Raymer is a nine-year travel-industry veteran launching her own agency, Peace and Pearl Travel Co., the very week of this recording. A former Title I high-school English teacher who sold international trips to her students before her husband’s aunt recruited her into the trade, Ali walks through the confluence of COVID, “revenge travel,” team leadership, and her own distinct vision that pushed her from team lead to founder. She makes a sharp case for the difference between a booking “agent” and a true travel “advisor,” argues (as a hot take) that the industry should be more regulated like real estate, and explains why she chose the host-agency route to outsource the back-office financials that aren’t her superpower. Along the way she covers how advisors actually get paid, how to play the points game without cutting your advisor out, and why free social-media marketing on every trip is the single biggest gap she sees other advisors leave on the table.

From Title I classroom to travel advisor

Ali was a high-school English teacher at a Title I school “selling travel to kids who couldn’t afford it” — fundraising the trips and taking students to Central America and Europe. Her husband’s aunt, who owned her own travel agency, saw how much travel Ali was doing and told her, “you could sell travel to people with money.” Over teacher summers off, Ali watched the veteran work, picked it up quickly (“I don’t have a marketing or sales degree”), and has been in the business nine years since.

“It’s what we do. If I went to the gym and looked at my trainer and he didn’t have muscles, I wouldn’t go to that gym. But he’s buff. He looks good. So I’m like, I need to do the same. I need to be exercising my tribal muscle.” — Ali Raymer

The rebuild after COVID, then the founder leap

Most people in the industry start their own agency within three to five years; Ali took longer because COVID “literally destroyed” her business around year three. She rebuilt “much better with better systems,” aiming to grow enough to leave teaching fully behind — and then “revenge travel” hit “with a vengeance.” Leads came “like crazy,” so she built a team (“I’m just gonna do it and ask for forgiveness later”), spread out leads, and grew into a leadership role. Pushing against the owners’ boundaries and slightly different vision is ultimately what convinced her to become a founder with her own specific vision.

“Like I literally sell memories and experiences. So I just don’t think there’s a better industry. I really don’t.” — Ali Raymer

The business-plan challenge: zooming out

Asked (via a question carried over from prior guest Sylvain Morin and Associates) about her biggest business-plan challenge, Ali described herself as “such a ADD squirrel brain” and “very much a creative.” The hard part is sitting down to build an all-encompassing checklist and seeing the business “from 30,000 feet” rather than the day-to-day she already masters. She leaned on marketing/branding people — including her guy Hussein who first launched her website — as “business therapy.”

“either Disney is getting that extra 10 % commission or a small business owner like myself is. And we’re advocating for you on your behalf instead of a Disney travel agent advocating for, let’s be honest, Disney’s behalf.” — Ali Raymer

Advisor vs. agent, and a call for more regulation

Ali likens travel advisors to realtors to help people understand the role, and offers a hot take: the industry should have higher regulation. Unlike realtors, travel agents need no individual licensing and no continuing education — anyone can join a host agency, use its license number, and book. She warns consumers to interview anyone claiming to be a travel agent, notes ASTA encourages a “blue check mark”-style verification (essentially one simple class), and says she’d happily do continuing ed for extra credibility because “there’s a lot of people in this business that like to travel but aren’t always going to be there to pick up the phone if you have a problem.”

Why a host agency

Financials are “a hundred percent not my skill set” — she’s the creative visionary who doesn’t like spreadsheets. Her new agency operates under a host agency that provides much of the back-end financial and licensing infrastructure (“we’re here… we’re gonna make sure you get paid every two weeks”), sparing her the administrative side. She’s set up as an S corp and outsources payroll to a local company.

The elevator pitch: you need an advisor, not an agent

Put on the spot for an elevator pitch, Ali subverts it: “you don’t need a travel agent” — with AI, Expedia, Booking.com and Southwest apps, booking is easy. What you need is an *advisor*. She jokes she’s “like a marriage counselor,” redirecting clients whose stated wish (Santorini from TikTok, Italy honeymoon) doesn’t match their real style — often landing them somewhere better (Portugal instead of Italy). She’s an independent advocate: using her costs nothing extra on many products (Disney, cruises) since the supplier pays the commission regardless — and during COVID cancellations, direct bookers fought for refunds while her clients had someone in their corner. A real-time example: a client stuck finding a rental car in Greece got a quick text back instead of an unanswerable Expedia phone line.

How advisors actually get paid

Revenue is twofold: planning/consult fees and retainers (charged on custom trips; often waived for a simple honeymoon all-inclusive), plus commissions driven by consortium and host-agency relationships and product loyalty — sell more of a product, earn higher commissions. Rough average yield is around 12%.

Wild and bougie trips

Highlights include an early, intimidating small-ship expedition cruise to Alaska; month-long stays in Italy and Spain for clients “everybody thinks are crazy”; and Southeast Asia trips including a Bali wedding. Her ultra-luxury client (a local clothing-brand owner, family of five) does private, five-star, first-class everything: a private Seine cruise in Paris, top Italy/France resorts, private cooking classes, VIP Disney Paris, Amalfi boat rides and Michelin dinners. “When people are like, there’s literally no budget… then I start throwing out numbers and they quickly realize they have a budget.”

Points without cutting out the advisor

Ali uses points herself (two kids, travels monthly). Advice: pick a card that fits your style — airlines first, because flights are what she least wants to pay for — and consider your local airport (she’s near BNA/Nashville with a strong Southwest schedule). She’ll build a client’s whole trip loaded with Marriott stays for a loyal Marriott client, let him book those himself to save money, and still earn commission on the boutique hotels and experiences she manages. “Do the points, play the game… you can still work with a travel advisor.”

Marketing is the industry’s biggest gap

Her target market splits across Instagram (millennials and Gen X moms scrolling) and Facebook (retired boomers with money and time). She calls it “imperative” to use free social-media marketing on every single trip — traveling roughly once a month and turning each trip into a marketing moment tuned to what clients want to know (e.g., “have you thought about going to the Peak District in the UK?”). The gym-trainer analogy drives it home: an advisor who doesn’t post their own trips is a trainer with no muscles. She insists travel is “the easiest, easiest thing to talk about and sell.”

AI is already sending her clients

Where clients used to say “Google,” now, in the last year, they increasingly say they found her via AI search — “I asked Gemini and you came up, you were the first one.” She notes even her “traditional boomer” parents use it, and advisors must think not just SEO-minded but about “what is AI going to be looking for.”

Tennessee/Kentucky and the DMC dream

Not knowing Tennessee as well (she’s Kentucky-based, from Lexington), Ali vouches for the Smoky Mountains and Dollywood (“low key, really legit… actually really well run”). Her down-the-road dream is to expand Peace and Pearl into a Kentucky DMC (destination management company) built on her bourbon-and-horse-country local pride — “one at a time.” —

Find Ali at peaceandpearltravel.com, connect on LinkedIn, or listen to the full conversation.