Travel Business Lounge | For Travel and Tour Entrepreneurs

If you run any type of travel business -- whether that be a travel planning agency or a tour business, a multi day retreat -- and you're NOT using Pinterest, I'm here to tell you today that you are sitting on a gold mine. Pinterest is an amazing lead generation tool,not just for bloggers or influencers, but for all travel brands Today, I chat with Louise Cottrell, who is a Pinterest expert who specialises in helping travel brands reach more clients and increase sales through Pinterest. As she says in this episode, Pinterest is a user-generated visual search engine -- not a social media platform -- which is why travel-related images and content do so well. And unlike Instagram or Facebook where the content you put out is only shown to your followers UNLESS you're using paid ads, Pinterest, by design, wants to make your content discoverable to new users. I think it's similar to TikTok's For You Page, in that sense. So it's much easier to get your content out to different users and to go viral -- without paying a cent! This episode is full of fantastic tips on how to harness Pinterest to create more leads for your business. Louise and I discuss how travel businesses can use Pinterest to increase bookings, the exact type of content you should be creating to generate more leads, and best practices for using Pinterest in 2021.

Today’s episode is a great one for anyone looking for inspiration on how to course correct when things go wrong in business.  The last nearly two years have put an incredible strain on the travel industry and businesses around the world have had to innovate to survive. This ability to be dynamic and adapt is absolutely essential in this environment, and I don’t think anyone does that better than Priyanka Zielinski. Pri and I speak specifically about the strategies she applied to save DC By Foot — and I’ll tell you now it involved completely reimagining their original business model. We also then talk about how she went on to found Dubai by foot and the ways in which she had to quickly adapt her business there once becoming more familiar with some of the cultural nuances of the city. Finally we discussed her new book while the Ultimate Family Business Survival Guide, which speaks on the pandemic and also more specifically on what family businesses in India need to do to survive. Pri is a master of adapting businesses in difficult situations and I think she offers a lot of incredible insight, especially for any tour businesses that work with OTAs , or online travel agencies such as Airbnb Experiences, Viator, or Get Your Guide. She really breaks down the strategies she used to optimize her tour listings on those pages and very quickly rise to the top of those platforms, this episode also includes lots of super actionable tips for that.

Hey everyone welcome back to episode 11 of the travel business lounge the place where we celebrate and learn from female entrepreneurs in the travel industry. Today's episode is especially close to my heart. I speak with Julia Denisyuk about the importance of women supporting one another and what can be achieved when we see each other as allies rather than competition. In addition to being an award winning travel writer and photographer, and a successful business owner, she is also the founder of the platform Genius Womxn, which is a community for creative women in the travel space to connect and learn from one another. SHOW NOTES: https://karablythe.com/travel-business-lounge/ FACEBOOK GROUP: https://www.facebook.com/groups/323995252173500 INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/travelbusinesslounge/

Sarah Funk is a YouTube genius who has had incredible success with her travel channel, which is all about her hometown of New York City. We chat about how she went from being broke, living with her parents, and running a not-so-successful travel blog to developing multiple, lucrative income streams, and gaining more than 14 million views and 140k thousand subscribers in less than 3 years. This episode is great if you want to learn some really practical YouTube tips and strategies which can be applied to pretty much any travel business. Not only does she earn money as a travel content creator on YouTube, but she also has used YouTube to build a successful tour business in New York as well as a vacation planning service, in addition to many other travel-related income streams. She also shares tips for business owners who are just starting out and reveals the exact steps she took to earn MORE money through virtual tours than she would have normally with in-person tours during the pandemic. SHOW NOTES: https://karablythe.com/travel-business-lounge/ FACEBOOK GROUP: https://www.facebook.com/groups/323995252173500 INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/travelbusinesslounge/

In this episode, we hear the story of how Anna Egleston, founder of Above Yoga, transitioned her business from a side hustle to a full-time gig. She is super honest about some of the struggles that she has dealt with since starting her business in 2017, including the fact that she never actually wanted to be a business owner. She enjoyed the security that a "normal" job offered her, but she just couldn't ignore her passion. So today you'll get to hear her story of taking that leap of faith during the pandemic. We discuss what pushed her to finally make the decision to go full time with her retreat business,what she learned after leading her first retreat, and how she's had to pivot her business during the pandemic to ensure that her guests are well taken care of and feel safe. She also shares her interest in giving back to society, practising inclusivity, sustainability, and community-mindedness.

Jessica Baumgart launched Delicious Denver Food Tours just 4 years ago after falling in love with food tours while traveling with her husband. "It was our new way to discover a new city," she reminisces. However, what started as a side hustle quickly evolved into a highly profitable business. And despite the incredible challenges imposed on both the tourism and hospitality industries in the last year of the pandemic, Delicious Denver has achieved the seemingly impossible: in July 2021, they hosted a record-breaking number of guests on their food tours. Jessica breaks down the exact marketing strategies she used to grow her food tour business with zero budget. She also reveals the exact pitch she uses to secure partnerships with popular local restaurants. Jessica then discusses the logistical challenges of running a food tour -- some of which may come as a surprise to new business owners. Finally, she discusses the ways in which her business has grown through hiring guides and outsourcing. SHOW NOTES: https://karablythe.com/travel-business-lounge/ FACEBOOK GROUP: https://www.facebook.com/groups/323995252173500 INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/travelbusinesslounge/

Kristen and Megan first bonded over their love of travel and shared study abroad experiences. Now, more than 10 years later, they are not just best friends but business partners. In 2016 they founded Legit Trips, a boutique tour operator specialising in group trips for 30-40 somethings. The idea for the business came about on a beach in Belize, at the tail-end of a stressful trip with 18 of their friends. Knowing that the experience would have been much better if they had organised everything on behalf of everyone but also understanding the insane amount of work that would entail, Kristen and Megan came up with a plan: "we're coming back here next year and people will pay us for it." This is a great episode to listen to if you've ever considered going into business with a friend or are curious about the benefits of having a cofounder or business partner. They also share how their tour business achieved incredible organic growth.  SHOW NOTES: https://karablythe.com/travel-business-lounge/ FACEBOOK GROUP: https://www.facebook.com/groups/323995252173500 INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/travelbusinesslounge/

Amanda Bisack, a successful travel blogger and founder of Travelista Travels, discusses her fascinating journey from dancer to travel influencer. She reveals how her blog laid the foundation for her agency, highlighting the symbiotic relationship between the two. Amanda shares strategies for leveraging social media and newsletters to attract clients, the influence of romantic travel on agency success, and her pressing experiences that built credibility as a blogger. Listeners gain insights into navigating the ever-changing landscape of travel and influencer marketing.

Kelly Lewis is the woman doing it all. She is the founder of Go! Girl Guides, the first travel guidebook series written specifically for women. In 2014 she started Women's Travel Fest, the world's largest conference for women who travel. She then launched her own tour company called Damesly, which provides trips around the world for professional and creative women. And most recently, she has written a book called Tell Her She Can't, a manifesto dedicated to every woman who has ever been told she is not enough. If you think she sounds like a total badass paving the way for women within the travel space and beyond, you're absolutely correct. Kelly is a leader and champion for other women, who has the uncanny ability to balance a dozen different spinning plates at the same time. Today we hear how she got her start in travel, how she manages to do so many things at once, and how she finds the confidence to pursue her dreams. If you've ever felt trapped by the bigness of an idea -- whether that's starting a new business, writing a book, or perhaps just launching a new tour -- this is the episode for you. Kelly is such a go-getter that I promise you can't help but feel inspired to finally do that thing that you've been afraid to do. SHOW NOTES: https://karablythe.com/travel-business-lounge/ FACEBOOK GROUP: https://www.facebook.com/groups/323995252173500 INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/travelbusinesslounge/

Today I have the absolute pleasure of speaking with Brianna Glenn of Milk + Honey, a boutique travel planning agency based in California that specialises in completely customised trips. As you'll hear in the episode, I originally learned about Milk + Honey on Instagram. A friend of mine shared her experience of traveling with them and I was blown away by the personal touches and attention to detail. I reached out to Brianna right away and was thrilled when she agreed to chat to me. This episode is jam packed with tips on digital marketing as a travel brand. Brianna is an absolute hive mind of knowledge on everything related to personal branding and social media. If you want to hear her strategies for finding clients through Instagram and attracting her ideal customer avatar, then you won't want to miss it. SHOW NOTES: https://karablythe.com/travel-business-lounge/ FACEBOOK GROUP: https://www.facebook.com/groups/323995252173500 INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/travelbusinesslounge/