Fora Targets the Travel Agent Skills Gap

25.08.2023 - 14:20 / skift.com / Selene Brophy

Deploying travel advisors with zero travel booking experience sounds like a bad idea. But travel agency Fora believes it is leveling the playing field for individuals passionate about travel to earn extra income by planning and booking trips.  

Skift previously reported on Fora’s ambitions to “easily recruit some 100 000” newbies to the industry after raising a total of $18.5 million in venture funding, notably $13.5 million in Series A funding in August last year. 

Started as a free-to-join model, the company claims it has seen plenty of people wanting to test travel booking as a potential career change, with a 40,000-strong waiting list. 

Since October last year, it has charged advisors a quarterly fee of $49 to join. A key difference with Fora is that travel advisors can join, while still keeping their main job.

Speaking to Skift about the questionable skills gap, as “97 percent of Fora’s 500 active advisors” have never booked travel before, co-founder Henley Vazquez said their “modern travel agency isn’t about blowing up existing systems.” 

Instead, she said it’s about bringing in “new supply, with new clients who have never before engaged in the travel market.”

“Hotels are our bread and butter, but advisors can plan as much, or as little, of a traveler’s experience as they want.” 

Vazquez said the company is solely focused on bringing in the right people into its network, allowing advisors to earn commission from day one and benefit from selected preferred partnerships, including the Virtuoso agency group.

Fora Advisors are onboarded through month-long training cohort. Certified advisors then qualify for its new advanced 60-day curriculum, which is both learning and milestone-based. 

Meredith Alexander, who is midway through the first advanced training programme, calls herself an almost empty nester, with one child in varsity and another set to finish high school.

Drawn to the brand she discovered on Instagram, Alexander says it was different from her fuddy-duddy perception of travel agents.

“It’s a robust community, with the ongoing support of co-advisors. The camaraderie is incredible,” she said.

Making the shift as an executive director of a non-profit, Alexander says she cannot believe how easy it has been to pick up a side hustle with a minimal cash layout.

Her biggest learning curve was being impatient to get started.

“I’m a ‘beginner-brain’ type of person and love learning, but in my first month, I booked a friend a stay at a Paris boutique hotel I had visited. It was not to his liking, though.”

Alexander says the “cancellation policy was vague.” Because the hotel did not fall within the gambit of partnerships that set Fora apart for its value-adds, it was a costly lesson. 

“I could lean