Welcome to Humans in the Hot Seat, a spinoff series of Humans of Travel. This is Emma Weissmann, Managing Editor at TravelAge West, and your host.

Over the coming weeks, we will be interviewing the finalists of the TravelAge West Trendsetter Awards, which were created to acknowledge the work of exceptional travel advisors. This year, TravelAge West honored travel advisors in five categories, and named a winner and a runner-up and each category.

Today, you’ll hear from the fourth travel advisor in this series: Lauren Quirk, the runner-up in the category of Best Use of Social Media. Lauren’s agency, Travel With Character, has a truly unique social media strategy. Lauren created a series of travel-related comedy songs for her social media accounts that have original song lyrics and Broadway-style theatrics. By focusing on messages that encourage engagement and brand awareness, her social media accounts for about $500,000 in sales per year. What originally started as acoustic videos played on piano has become professionally produced tracks and music videos.

This episode was sponsored by the Iberostar Resorts.

Lauren's Trendsetter award was sponsored by Sandals Resorts.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Lauren's Social Media: @travelwithcharacter (Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook)

ABOUT YOUR HOST

Emma Weissmann is the Managing Editor of TravelAge West, a print magazine and website for travel advisors based in the Western U.S. She is also the co-host of Trade Secrets, a podcast created with sister publication Travel Weekly.

TravelAge West also produces national trade publications Explorer and Family Getaways, as well as events including the Future Leaders in Travel Retreat, Global Travel Marketplace West, the WAVE Awards gala and the Napa Valley Leadership Forum.

ABOUT THE SHOW

TravelAge West’s podcast, “Humans of Travel,” features conversations with exceptional people who have compelling stories to tell. Listeners will hear from the travel industry’s notable authorities, high-profile executives, travel advisors and rising stars as they share the highs and lows that make them human.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark Wolters was an early social media influencer — he created his YouTube channel, Wolters World, in 2009; since then, he’s uploaded more than 2,300 travel videos and racked up more than 227 million views and nearly 1 million subscribers. In 2014, he was named the No. 1 independent travel videographer by USA Today.

And when Wolters isn’t documenting his travel endeavors on YouTube, he’s a professor of marketing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Gies College of Business.

In this episode of Humans of Travel, Wolters provides a crash course in social media marketing and advises travel businesses looking to build their brand and grow a following online.

Listeners will hear Wolters reflect on his own path to success, why he chose to feature honest travel advice (that shows both the good and the bad sides of traveling), the importance of remaining authentic online and the main challenges that wannabe influencers may face when starting out.

This episode is sponsored by Lindblad Expeditions – National Geographic.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Follow Mark Wolters on Social Media

Youtube:

Wolters World

Wolters World Eats

Wolters World Shorts

Professor Wolters

Wolters World on Facebook

Wolters World on Instagram

Wolters World on TikTok

Wolters’ Favorite influencers:

Megan Daily

Rob from Trip Hacks DC

Samuel and Audrey: @thatbackpacker

ABOUT YOUR HOST

Emma Weissmann is the Managing Editor of TravelAge West, a print magazine and website for travel advisors based in the Western U.S. She is also the co-host of Trade Secrets, a podcast created with sister publication Travel Weekly.

TravelAge West also produces national trade publications Explorer and Family Getaways, as well as events including the Future Leaders in Travel Retreat, Global Travel Marketplace West, the WAVE Awards gala and the Napa Valley Leadership Forum.

ABOUT THE SHOW

TravelAge West’s podcast, “Humans of Travel,” features conversations with exceptional people who have compelling stories to tell. Listeners will hear from the travel industry’s notable authorities, high-profile executives, travel advisors and rising stars as they share the highs and lows that make them human.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to Humans in the Hot Seat, a spinoff series of Humans of Travel. This is Emma Weissmann, Managing Editor at TravelAge West, and your host.

Over the coming weeks, we will be interviewing the finalists of the TravelAge West Trendsetter Awards, which were created to acknowledge the work of exceptional travel advisors. This year, TravelAge West honored travel advisors in five categories, and named a winner and a runner-up and each category.

Today, you’ll hear from the third travel advisor in this series: Nikki Hendrix, the winner in the category of Best Use of Social Media. Nikki is the founder and CEO of Favorite Grampy Travels. What started out as a small, local Facebook group for Disney fans in Loudoun County, Virginia, blossomed into a network of 10 themed Facebook groups, the largest of which boast memberships of 212,000 and 237,000, each. They offer members interactive online Facebook events with advisors and preferred suppliers and, in turn, can nurture hundreds of relationships with potential clients each week. Today, you’ll hear from Nikki exactly how the Facebook group came about, and her goals in creating it.

This episode was sponsored by the Iberostar Resorts.

Nikki's Trendsetter award was sponsored by Sandals Resorts.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Favorite Grampy Travels

Favorite Grampy Travels on Facebook

Nikki on Facebook

ABOUT YOUR HOST

Emma Weissmann is the Managing Editor of TravelAge West, a print magazine and website for travel advisors based in the Western U.S. She is also the co-host of Trade Secrets, a podcast created with sister publication Travel Weekly.

TravelAge West also produces national trade publications Explorer and Family Getaways, as well as events including the Future Leaders in Travel Retreat, Global Travel Marketplace West, the WAVE Awards gala and the Napa Valley Leadership Forum.

ABOUT THE SHOW

TravelAge West’s podcast, “Humans of Travel,” features conversations with exceptional people who have compelling stories to tell. Listeners will hear from the travel industry’s notable authorities, high-profile executives, travel advisors and rising stars as they share the highs and lows that make them human.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.