Nadia "Sparkle" Henry
A couple of weeks ago, while attending the ASTA Travel Conference in San Diego, I met two young entrepreneurs as I walked through the convention halls on my way to a session.
As I approached the two gentlemen, I introduced myself and asked who they were and which agency they were affiliated with. That's when Matthew Wade and Gabriel Gatete explained that they were not travel advisors but co-founders of a business intelligence and data analytics platform called Toggle that is designed specifically for advisors and host agencies. They also told me about their third co-founder, Husain Boxwala, who was unable to attend the conference.
Together they were honored as the 2026 ASTA Entrepreneurs of the Year.
As our conversation continued, I learned that the idea for Toggle originated with Husain, whose passion for travel dates back to his high school years. The three founders met while attending the University of Michigan, where they studied computer science and eventually combined their technical expertise with a vision to create technology that would help travel advisors make smarter business decisions.
Our brief conversation sparked my interest, and I wanted to learn more. I exchanged contact information with Matthew and told him I would reach out after the conference. Once I returned to the office, I scheduled a Zoom meeting with all three founders to get a deeper understanding of the platform and its capabilities.
I was impressed by what they demonstrated. The platform offers powerful insights that can help agency owners and advisors better understand and grow their businesses. It would take several pages to describe everything Toggle can do, but one feature that immediately caught my attention was its benchmarking capability.
Toggle enables agencies and advisors to securely and anonymously compare their performance against thousands of peers across its network. The platform provides percentile rankings, performance insights and visibility into the gap between current performance and top producers -- within your own agency but also in comparisons with all agencies using Toggle. This gives agencies a clearer picture of where they stand within the industry and where opportunities for growth may exist.
Another feature I found valuable is the reporting on client management and retention. Toggle can help identify clients who frequently book with you as well as clients who have not booked in awhile. This enables advisors to proactively reach out with follow-up emails, promotions or vacation ideas. Through its reporting tools and AI-powered features, the platform can help identify opportunities that might otherwise be overlooked.
Right now, Toggle only supports ClientBase/Trams and Tres. The team is exploring future integrations with additional CRM platforms. Unfortunately, my agency currently uses Vacation CRM (VCRM), and at this time Toggle does not integrate with that. But I plan to reach out to the VCRM owners to discuss the possibility of an integration.
Toggle's goal is to create a more connected technology ecosystem that makes it easier for advisors to leverage data across multiple platforms.
After seeing the platform's capabilities and hearing the co-founders' vision for the future, it is easy to understand why they were recognized as ASTA Entrepreneurs of the Year.
One of the greatest benefits of attending industry conferences is the opportunity to network, build relationships and discover innovative ideas that can help move our businesses forward. My encounter with the Toggle team is a perfect example of how a simple introduction in a conference hallway can lead to discovering a solution that has the potential to transform how travel advisors analyze and grow their businesses.