Maria Vannicola fell in love with travel during her first trip to Europe as a young woman. Then, after returning home and finding a temporary receptionist job at a travel agency, she fell in love again — this time with the joy of helping others to have that same experience.
Forty years later, Vannicola is one of Montreal’s top-performing travel advisors at Voyage Régence. Today, she focuses on high-end luxury, where she continues to experience, through her clients, the thrill that began with youth hostels and a Eurorail pass in the 1980s.
“It was just a fluke — a summer job that turned into a career,” recalled Vannicola. “But it was so exciting! People were going places, doing things. I had never seen that before … I can still feel the smile on their face when we speak on the phone and the excitement in their voice. It’s special.”
Vannicola was one of half a dozen advisors from across Canada who spoke to Open Jaw recently about their careers, challenges and triumphs, and love for travel in celebration of Global Travel Advisor Day 05MAY26.
Mother and son duo Conroy Ross and Donna Bennett found their way into travel advising through a bit of serendipity. Bennett’s husband, Greg, helped found KVI Travel, a BC-based specialist in interline cruises. She was working in a different industry, but signed on after seeing that her husband was having a lot more fun in his work.
“It’s a really happy career,” said Bennett. “The world is somewhat divided. But when people realize that everybody is kind of as one and wants the same thing in life — love, family, safety — (that’s how) travel really opens people’s eyes to different cultures, and I think bonds everybody together. It’s a beautiful thing.”
Ross, a singer and guitarist in the Kelowna area, joined the business several years ago as an advisor. “I just always wanted to explore,” he said. “This is such a nice way to look at the world around me.”
That world is changing fast — especially for the travel trade, with geopolitical instability, fuel concerns, and the advent of AI. But when it comes to new technology, the advisors who talked to Open Jaw believe AI could be more reward than risk.
Vannicola lived through a similar disruption in the 90s, when the Internet opened up a whole new world of destinations to consumers, and similar fears among travel advisors that they would become obsolete. She found the opposite to be true.
“AI is going to be my best tool ever, like the Internet was,” she said. “I’m selling you service from A to Z. There’s a lot of information out there, and AI will gather it for us, but someone has to execute it properly, and we’re going to be there to do it for them.”
And even obviously negative developments, like the COVID pandemic or the current Middle Eastern war, can have unexpected effects on the travel trade.
“Everybody said I could have died” during COVID, said Vannicola, of the boom in travel after restrictions were lifted. “So I’m taking my bucket list, and I’m going to go right through it. This year, it’s a bit trickier since March with all that’s going on in the world. But we remind (clients) that even if something does happen that we never think is going to happen, we will get you home. We’ll make it a safe journey for you.”
For husband-and-wife team Paulo and Michelle Branco, the pandemic was a sort of trial by fire. They were living in Toronto and working in very different fields — he in the corporate world and she in public health — when they were offered a chance to take over the family travel agency in London, Ontario.
That was 2018, not long before COVID grounded planes and anchored ships, throwing the travel trade into crisis. The couple were fortunate to have the help of the previous owners of their agency, Ellison Travel and Tours. Then, when travel started up again with a vengeance, customers both new and old came out of the woodwork with a newfound appreciation for travel advisors.
“During COVID, they were the ones stuck on the phone or scrambling to get home,” said Michelle. “Travel has changed so much. It’s more complicated.”
The pandemic challenges didn’t dampen their enthusiasm for the travel trade.
For Paulo, the best part of the job is “being able to execute client dreams” and helping people see the world. “The community is a big family. I have seen this a lot,” he added. “Each business is unique, so we don’t really compete.”
Said Michelle: “I love the people in the travel business. It’s a very fun industry. But also the fact that it’s always changing is something I personally find exciting. Nothing is ever stagnant.
“There’s no industry quite like it, I think.”
