2021 has been a year of growth and community—and many made significant contributions to help the industry push forward. Here are the people, places, and things that made an impact in 2021, including star travel advisors, disruptive industry organizations, and destinations doing things right.
Noisemaker #1: Sheryl Bayers, Travel Advisor at TravelPlex
Sheryl Bayers worked for 32 years as a financial analyst in corporate America before she found her passion for planning trips professionally. “I always loved to plan travel and I did all my family’s annual trips.” But it wasn’t until her husband did a web redesign for a travel agency in 2015 that she was officially invited to get into the business. Sheryl immediately found success, which she credits to her personal touch and the connection she forges with clients. “I have a hard time calling the people I work with clients, I call them friends,” she admits.
Regardless of the moniker, they have come back in droves this year, ready to get back to travel. “This increase in business has required me to put a bit more structure in place to keep up with this growth (and my sanity). I have added administrative staff this year to help with the increased business, but I still find time to call each customer before they travel. They love this personal touch that allows them to ask any last-minute questions before their trip.”
Noisemaker #2: Dominican Republic
As a leader in safe tourism practices during the pandemic, the Dominican Republic deserves applause for its vision during a time of deep uncertainty in tourism. In September 2020, President Luis Abinader Corona and Minister of Tourism, David Collado, implemented the Responsible Tourism Recovery Plan to help the country, its workers, and visitors reemerge from the travel hiatus safely. The plan includes a 100% vaccination rate for all tourism service personnel (mandated by the Dominican Republic government), random breath tests at all international airports, and a generous, government-funded healthcare plan for tourists covering all types of emergencies, including a possible coronavirus contagion. While health insurance is no longer offered for free, the recovery plan has proven to be a success. Even the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili publicly commended the efforts, noting that “Reestablishing trust in travel is a key first step towards tourism recovery, bringing hope to millions of people in the Americas and igniting the economic recuperation in general.”
Along with other tourism leaders in the Americas, the country has also pledged to emphasize innovation and digital transformation, develop sustainable tourism, and strengthen support mechanisms for workers and impacted companies. With a rich culture, 1,000 miles of coastline, and a year-round temperate climate, forward-thinking initiatives and nailing a safe reopening is simply another reason the Dominican Republic makes a great destination.
Noisemaker #3: Ryan Doncsecz, Groups Department Manager at VIP Vacations
The travel bug caught Ryan Doncsecz at an early age. At 16, he was an advanced scuba diver and had traveled to exotic destinations all over the world. In high school, he continued his travels with choir and band, to places like Disney World and Disneyland. Now, as manager of the Groups Department at VIP Vacations, Doncsecz leads similar groups to theme parks, bowl games, music festivals, Broadway shows, and sporting events. The company has even arranged choirs to sing at the Vatican and tour around Italy. For this trained baritone and music major, his work is a dream come true.
Doncsecz also helps couples plan destination weddings and recently became a specialist for those wanting to get away to niche destinations such as Thailand, South Africa, and Peru. "With so much negativity and tough news in 2020, my goal for 2021 was to be a positive influence to my team, clients, and industry partners,” he says. And, it seems to have paid off with a very busy 2022 season for VIP.
"With so much uncertainty around travel, the fact that we have this many couples and group leaders still entrusting their big days to the VIP team speaks volumes to our service. What has made this year and the outlook for 2022 a little different than the past is that groups themselves are bigger, with more guests to help, and more protocols to explain. We now service and communicate with the ‘individual traveler’ five times as much as in the past, so the fact that our service levels have stayed high is a true testament to the VIP team approach."
Noisemaker #4: Kim Goldstein, President and Travel Consultant at Journeys, Inc.
Kim Goldstein started in the world of travel and tourism in 2006 after a chance meeting with a travel agent in a grocery store. In 2017, she bought the very company she started at—Journeys, Inc., which has now been in business for 30 years. From Disney to Sandals to the Caribbean, “I’ve sold the whole world,” she says. Today, she primarily books destination travel like honeymoons and family vacations, for satisfied clients who come back again and again when they choose to travel for their major life events.
Now that her clients are feeling ready to travel, business is back with a bang. She attributes this to excellent communication within her team and a unique focus on the customer communication experience for clients. “When it was announced that travelers entering or returning to the United States would need to require proof of vaccine or a negative COVID test, for example, we were already working on updating all of our email sequences to ensure our clients were notified.”
While she does a brisk business in sales, Goldstein is a team player who is quick to offer help to other agents. “I don’t see other agencies as being my competitors,” she says. “I see the internet being my competitor. The more we work together, the more successful we all are.”
Noisemaker #5: Wendy Hicks, Professional Travel Advisor at Unique Romance Travel & Destination Weddings
Wendy Hicks has been a travel agent since 1980, but it wasn’t until about 13 years ago that she found her niche in destination weddings and romance travel. Perhaps it helped that she had her own destination wedding in Hawaii several years prior. In 2020—in the midst of the COVID shutdown—she joined Unique Romance Travel & Destination Weddings. “Although the commissions weren’t coming, I was still at my desk all day, every day for all of 2020,” she admits. “All of the weddings that were on the books that had to be canceled, rebooked, or refunded were taken care of. I feel proud of that. Now, there is a huge pent-up demand for travel and an optimism that things are going to be much better going forward.”
For Hicks, a booming business comes down to her love of working with people and having boots on the ground. “Personal experience makes a huge difference,” she says. “It’s really helpful to have seen a place personally.” The fact that she has always loved to travel doesn’t hurt either. Although she lives and works in the Northern California town of Cotati, she considers Mexico a second home—a destination she regularly visits for both work and pleasure.
Noisemaker #6: Stephanie Jones, Founder & CEO of National Blacks in Travel and Tourism Collaborative (BTT)
Stephanie Jones has a dream for travel and tourism: for it to be a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive sphere for all. As a tourism development consultant, she works with destinations to develop programs that bring cultural heritage tourism to the forefront and attract multicultural travelers to businesses in underserved communities within those destinations. For years, Jones has been one to watch, having helped to create several innovative tourism initiatives, such as Culture onShore, the world’s first global marketplace for cultural heritage tours and activities, and Black Cultural Heritage Tours. This year she furthered her dream for equitable tourism by forming the National Blacks in Travel & Tourism Collaborative (BTT). Created in response to the 2020 global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter Movement, BTT assists small black and brown tourism businesses to access equitable opportunities in the industry through the Black Tourism Talent Directory and the Diversity Tourism Academy. The organization also hosts programs like the DEI Deep Dive Masterclass, Diversity Tourism Academy, and Black Speaker’s Bureau.
For the benefit of us all, Jones is activating her dream one project at a time. ”I always speak with truth and transparency even when my words may not be viewed as politically correct or popular,” she says. "My intent is to use my global platform and seats at tables to challenge the status quo and to represent voices and faces of the underrepresented and underserved to help create broader diversity, inclusion, and equitable opportunities to level the playing field for Blacks in travel and tourism.”
Noisemaker #7: Norwegian Cruise Line
Last July, Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Jade made the first sailing for the cruise line in 500 days out of a new homeport in Athens, Greece. Another celebratory moment came in August, when Norwegian Encore became the first ship to return to service in U.S. waters, sailing from Seattle to kick off the Alaska cruise season. Instrumental in achieving these milestones is Norwegian’s SailSAFE Global Health and Wellness program, which provides regulations to ensure the safety of everyone aboard their ships. Implemented in the midst of the COVID pandemic, SailSAFE requires full vaccination status for both guests and crew, free testing and screenings at ports prior to embarkation as well as medical-grade filtration systems throughout the ship. The perk of this program is that guests and crew can enjoy cruises as if it were 2019 again, without the use of masks, social distancing, or venue or capacity limitations.
Despite the industry hardships of 2020, Norwegian Cruise Line President and CEO Harry Sommer is looking forward to a bright future with, “reimagined port of calls, amazing itineraries for extraordinary journeys, fleetwide enhancements, plus the much-anticipated launch of our brand new class of ships, and so much more.” The SailSAFE program is in place through the end of 2021, at which time a reassessment will determine requirements for future sailings, or the need to change course.
Noisemaker #8: Andy Ogg, CTIE and Co-owner/CEO of Travel Professional News, HomeBasedTravelAgent.com and FindaHostTravelAgency.com
No one in the industry gives travel advisors better insights into the world of host agencies than Andy Ogg. Co-owner and CEO of Travel Professional News, HomeBasedTravelAgent.com, and FindaHostTravelAgency.com, Ogg is currently taking over the family business from his parents, Tom and Joanie Ogg. In early 2020, before the pandemic lockdown, all were on a celebratory trip in Mexico to commemorate their most successful year since starting the business—and then travel fell off a cliff.
“We lost a very significant amount of our business,” Ogg says. “We made a choice to stand with our clients.” While this decision meant late nights, low pay, and faith that everything will work out, the family business persevered. Two big changes in 2021 that have helped make the business stronger include a move from San Diego to Surprise, Arizona, and collaborations with industry leaders. “When 2021 started, I printed out a sign that said ‘COLLABORATION’ and put it on my computer screen,” he says “Since then we have developed fantastic new training platforms with The Travel Institute, we've initiated a great partnership with VAX regarding host agency education, and we’ve continued to support home-based travel agents with free marketing goods, free information and helpful tips, tricks, and tools so agents can build their business back in a post-pandemic world.”
Even more impressive, Ogg has accomplished all of this while facing a personal challenge: A gene mutation known as Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) has left him legally blind in recent years. But this is just something else he takes in stride, this time with the help of a 40-inch monitor as well as voice-over, voice-to-text, and screen reading technologies in his office. When he is not sending his travel colleagues the best insight on industry issues, you can find him enjoying the outdoors in his new Arizona home with his wife and two daughters.
Noisemaker #9: Eben Peck, Executive Vice President of Advocacy for the American Society of Travel Advisors
In what was arguably another challenging year for travel agencies and advisors, Eben Peck has been an invaluable first line of defense for the industry. As Executive Vice President of Advocacy for the American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA), Peck has had a full plate of issues to fight for, including the easing of cruise line restrictions, the passage of the Alaska Tourism Restoration Act, and ensuring pandemic relief money is available for constituents, among other important issues.
ASTA has been grounded in advocacy since its founding in 1931 when it launched with the mission, "to facilitate the business of selling travel through effective representation, shared knowledge and the enhancement of professionalism.” In recent months, Peck ramped up this work on a massive scale. “When crisis struck, ASTA and its members responded on a scale that dwarfed our previous lobbying campaigns,” he says. “Since the onset of COVID, we have conducted over 425 Congressional meetings, a number that includes those conducted during ASTA’s Legislative Day 2021 in May. We have run 28 separate federal and state grassroots campaigns, resulting in 30,000 people sending emails and making phone calls to elected officials to the tune of 120,000 advocacy contacts. Compare this to our previous record of 2,900 people participating in the California Assembly Bill 5 campaign in 2019.”
Steeped in decades of government affairs and advocacy work, Peck’s experience has primed him for this moment. With many wins this year (and many more to go), agents are thrilled to have someone as knowledgeable, passionate, and effective on their side.
Noisemaker #10: Jacob Sark, Sales Manager at SVH Travel
Growing up within a family-owned travel agency, Jacob Sark was no stranger to travel as a child. “Traveling for me has always been a mix of pleasure and business. We travel and enjoy ourselves, but when the morning comes, it’s time for a site inspection.” SVH Travel was started by Sark’s father nearly 30 years ago in Glendale, California. Today, he helps run the business alongside his father and brother, leading a team of eight advisors as Sales Manager.
“What differentiates us is hands-on experience and knowledge,” he explains. “With that knowledge, we bring to each customer, we can tell them what to do and what not to do in each destination. We actually have that first-hand knowledge, you aren’t just looking at how many stars a place gets online. We want to know what we are talking about.”
When the pandemic hit, Sark and his team sprang into action, keeping clients informed. “We updated them. We shared the latest COVID information. We were keeping them constantly in the loop. So, when they were ready, they felt confident.” And now, with business back, he can go back to doing what he loves—planning stress-free and memorable vacations for others. "You know that it pays off when they call and thank you,” he says. “That is the joy for me.”
Noisemaker #11: Kevin Wojciechowski, Senior Vice President of Sales and Distribution at AMR Collection
With a growing portfolio of luxury resort brands, including Secrets, Dreams, and Breathless Resorts & Spas, Kevin Wojciechowski is a leader in the world of luxury resorts. In his impressive 40-year career in hospitality, Mr. Wojciechowski has spent the last 32 years in the all-inclusive segment, enabling him to call Asia, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States home.
In April 2021, Wojciechowski took the helm as Senior Vice President of Sales and Distribution at AMR Collection, the new master brand for AMResorts. In this role, he leads the global sales strategy, strengthens existing and new business partnerships, and expands opportunities for AMResorts Americas. Specifically for Wojciechowski and the sales teams, the launch of the company’s first master brand is a highlight of 2021 and a proud investment into the company and the brands that have become synonymous with all-inclusive, luxury properties.
Originally appeared in the winter 2021 issue of The Compass Magazine.
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