The 30-year-old Western Association of Travel Agencies (Westa) has weathered the ups and downs and changes in the travel agency industry and is thriving, boasting strong sales from several long-time members who have made the transition to operating home-based businesses while remaining part of the co-op consortium.
“We've had as a good year this year as any in the last 20 years,” said Mike Estill, COO of Westa, a group of 150 agencies in the western U.S., each of which owns an equal amount of shares in the group and shares in its profits. The association was ranked No. 10 among the Top 10 largest consortia/co-ops in Travel Weekly's 2014 Power List.
Estill has managed Westa for the past 21 years; his father, George Estill, was one of Westa's founding agency owner members. George continues to work as a travel agent, but he no longer operates a brick-and-mortar location; today he plies his trade from his home.
The strength of Westa's member sales this year has been in FITs and a boom in European river cruises, said Estill.
“FITs have picked up in the last four or five years because we have a lot of high-end clients who realize that they can't do that once-in-a-lifetime tour of castles in Germany on the Internet; there's no app for that. So, we're seeing savvier clients who are looking for help. It's shifted from clients asking agents to tell them where to go to clients asking for help with specific logistics of experiential type of travel that is hard to book on the Internet.”
Like a lot of consortia, Westa over the years has relaxed its rules for membership, which in the past required ARC accreditation and a brick-and-mortar location. Today, it ensures that its members are full-time agents, not “hobbyists, says Estill, but it makes room for home-based agents who meet Westa's sales volume requirements.
A small “fraction” of Westa members are home-based, Estill said, and most of those are longtime members who closed their brick-and-mortar location and scaled back their hours. However, they typically have retained their most lucrative clientele and are maintaining strong sales, he said.
“In fact, our single largest sale last year was from a single-agent, home-based office,” Estill said.
On the other hand, he said, there is another trend emerging from the home-based agents. “We also have seen younger home-based operations outgrow the lack of visibility that comes with a home-based operation and open retail space, so there is a flow both ways,” he said.
This year, the consortia is introducing a two-day training and networking Westa Travel Professional Conference for its member agents, replacing its previous one-day program.
The conference will take place this fall in four locations: Southern California, Northern California, Seattle and Portland, Ore. Hundreds of staff members and independent contractors associated with Westa agencies are expected to attend, said Estill. In addition to meeting with preferred suppliers, the conference will include sales training and seminars on legal issues.
In the Top 10 Consortia/Cooperatives List that ran with the 2014 Power List, Westa was incorrectly identified as the Western Association of Travel Planners.