Global Travel Collection (GTC), the luxury arm of Internova Travel Group (No. 10 on Travel Weekly's Power List), is sunsetting the brands it was built on: Protravel International, Tzell Travel Group and Altour.
Home to more than 1,500 advisors and $2.4 billion in annual sales, GTC has been moving toward what president Angie Licea calls the unification of its brands for years. But the change is official after Tuesday's announcement.
"We don't take lightly the legacy of these brands," Licea said. "They all meant something, and they all kind of grew up at the same time. They came up under these really iconic leaders. They were definitely personalities within their cultures."
Protravel International was founded by Priscilla Alexander in 1984. The late Barry Liben, who was CEO of Tzell for more than 40 years, first invested in the agency in 1977.
Tzell merged with Internova, then known as Travel Acquisitions Group, in 2008. Protravel joined Internova, then known as Travel Leaders Group, in 2012.
In 2017, Travel Leaders Group merged with Altour, which was founded by Alexandre Chemla in 1991.
Angie Licea
"Each one was known for its own culture," Licea said. "We didn't enter into this thinking, 'Let's just wash away the past.' We're trying to incorporate the past into our present and our future by acknowledging where everybody came from, but the need to be one in order for us to be what we need to be in today's marketplace."
The unification of brands has been years in the making. It began with creating the GTC umbrella over the brands. Then came bringing together operations and building an infrastructure, followed by bringing together the community of advisors.
While GTC is the brand name moving forward, Licea said the host agency won't forget its legacy. She likened it to consolidation among the airlines.
"If you look at United Airlines, they still have the presence of Continental there," she said. "That's sort of what we're looking to do, really taking the best of each of those agencies and creating what is now the Global Travel Collection that is a new culture and personality, but it's made up of the past."
While nodding to the past, GTC's focus on the future is investing in technology, AI and proper resources to help members grow.
Licea believes one of GTC's strengths is helping advisors reach increasingly bigger milestones in their businesses.
Today, its top 15% of members are part of The Circle, once a top advisor recognition program that today acts as a growth accelerator.
This year, 232 advisors qualified to be part of the Circle with more than $3 million in annual sales; 20 of those advisors joined the group for the first time in 2026. Last year, its network of members booked nearly 900 trips valued at $100,000 or more, with the largest single booking standing at $2.6 million.
In the Know Experiences, which is part of GTC, will remain its own brand, focused on helping advisors who are new to the industry to grow.
GTC remains a member of Virtuoso.
Introducing GTC to the industry
GTC itself is a brand that didn't mean much when its name was first coined six years ago. That was by design, as executives didn't want Protravel, Tzell or Altour agents to feel slighted.
"The challenge was we didn't want any particular group to feel like they lost," Licea said.
That feeling was exacerbated by the pandemic, which impacted agencies greatly. Picking a name that referenced one of the brands but not the others could have alienated a good portion of GTC's members.
"We really set up to create a brand that could grow to mean something, but didn't mean anything at all," she said.
Licea then embarked on a yearslong endeavor of introducing GTC to the industry.
For three years going to ILTM, for instance, she talked almost entirely about what GTC was for brand-building and consistency. But this past ILTM, she didn't talk about that at all.
"The good news is that we are in a place where the majority of the industry understands who we are," she said.
While some members weren't quite thrilled to give up brands they had worked with for years, Licea said GTC has received very little pushback in the process of unification.
The next generation of travel advisors
At the end of the day, GTC is a business, but Licea is adamant that "I never want GTC to be just about the money."
The brand has invested in its own TV show designed to uplift the entire industry of travel advisors, as well as attract new blood to the agency community, not just GTC, Licea said.
She is also focused on ensuring a new generation of travel advisors is always ready to go on the horizon.
"I want it to be about what we're doing to ensure that when we sunset our careers, there's a whole line of people who are ready to take up and continue this industry, because it's such a valuable part," she said. "With travel being 10% of GDP, at 10% of the world's income, there's plenty of space for people to come into this industry, and it's such an amazing industry."