The Travel Institute has announced its Q2 2025 event calendar with a continued robust list of PEP Talks—complimentary, expert-learning events held live and online, as led by members of its Professional Educators Program, or PEP. Nearly 70 top trainers, thought leaders and subject matter experts from both inside and outside the travel industry are now included on The Travel Institute’s PEP roster, giving both new and experienced travel professionals the opportunity to gain valuable, actionable insight on timely topics year-round at no cost.
Topics include artificial intelligence, service fees, becoming an advisor, home office productivity, specialization and more. Open to all travel professionals, the 2025 Q2 event schedule includes:
- Grow Your Group Business with These 10 Strategies (April 10, 11 a.m. EDT): Travel entrepreneurs know the benefits of building a profitable group sales niche; however, using outdated, old-school methods reduces performance, profitability and potential. Group sales guru Stuart L. Cohen, MCC, chief motivation officer, is a well-known motivational speaker and shares the newest strategies for revitalizing your group sales.
- Risk Management: Legal Tips for Travel Agents (April 15, 12:30 p.m. EDT): Attorney Chun T. Wright provides legal strategies to protect travel advisors and their company in this important session. Learners will learn about the differences among a sole proprietor, an LLC and a corporation; insurance options and benefits such as E&O; traveler disclosure requirements; common disclaimers and waivers; and protecting intellectual property while avoiding infringement claims.
- The State of Travel Agency Acquisitions in 2025 (May 8, Noon EDT): Join Doug Haugen, senior matchmaker, and Bob Sweeney, president, Innovative Travel Acquisitions, Inc., to learn five essential tips for buyers and 10 tips for sellers, as well as strategies to avoid pitfalls during the buying and selling process. Travel professionals will also gain guidance on how to effectively value your agency.
- Expanding Your Business by Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone (May 12, 12:30 p.m. EDT): Stacey Cabell, founder of Starstuff Travel, explains how pushing past fear and embracing discomfort unlocks opportunities you never imagined for your travel business. Along the way, you’ll learn how to shift your mindset to overcome self-doubt and stay focused on achieving your biggest goals. From trying new marketing strategies, building relationships in unfamiliar spaces and "boldly pursuing" dreams that seem out of reach, travel professionals come away with actionable strategies and personal insights to fuel their growth and take their career to the next level.
- Secrets of Successfully Selling Travel (May 15, 2 p.m. EDT): While host agencies and franchises prioritize attracting prospects and retaining customers, the key lies in mastering the sale itself, explains session host Dan Chappelle, founder, The Wealthy Travel Agent Academy. Major cruise lines and tour operators invest significantly in sales training for their vacation planners—shouldn’t travel advisors do the same? Based on his bestselling book, "Get Your S.H.I.P. Together," this PEP Talk equips advisors with a proven process to attract and convert prospects into clients to boost their commissions.
- You Hired a New Person: Now What? (May 22, 1 p.m. EDT): Onboarding is key with new employees and independent contractors, yet it takes time away from selling and managing. Advisors can join Guida Botelho, senior director of education at The Travel Institute, to design a training program that fits their agency and ensures a well-trained team, taking advantage of readily available resources and allowing them to focus training only on internal processes and policies.
- Rail Travel 101 featuring USA with Amtrak Vacations (May 28, 1 p.m. EDT): Travel professionals can join Jim Marini, senior vice president of strategic partnerships, Railbookers, for an overview of Amtrak Vacations, which experienced a record 32.8 million passengers in the U.S. last year as demand for rail service continues to grow. Clients will have access to rates and availability that cannot be found anywhere else from any one of 500-plus Amtrak stations across North America.
- DISC Personality Styles and Teamwork (June 5, 2 p.m. EDT): The DISC personality model is widely used to understand individual differences in behavior and personality. Travel professionals will join Victoria Ann Akkerman, operations manager, ABT, to learn about four primary personality types: Dominance (D), Influence (I), Steadiness (S) and Conscientiousness (C), and understand the unique traits, motivations and communication styles of each to help manage their team.
- Dealing with Difficult Clients (June 19, Noon EDT): No matter how workplace respect is encouraged or enforced, most advisors still encounter difficult clients from time to time. If ignored or mishandled, poor behaviors can devastate relationships and ultimately impact your business. Consultant Paul Pelletier shares a number of proactive, preventative measures to manage these behaviors and to implement an effective strategy for improved relationships and interactions, even under the most challenging circumstances.
Live PEP Talk attendance is complimentary for all advisors while also being archived and available on-demand 24/7 for subscribers of The Travel Institute’s online continued learning library. Starting in 2025, these subscribers also benefit from additional “perks” from PEP members, including discounts as well as content, such as a recent white paper on how to best select a CRM, provided by Mark McCowan, CTIE, sales for TRES Technologies, North America.
Along with timely, actionable learning, certified graduates of The Travel Institute gain two continuing education units, or CEUs, for attendance toward the 10 required annually to keep certification current. As an independent, non-profit educational organization and with advisors “aging out” across all levels throughout the industry, The Travel Institute is focused on affordability, including both low-tuition and no-tuition/free education resources, to maximize its reach and accessibility for all travel professionals, including front-line, entry level advisors, mid-level managers and senior industry leaders.
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