Recent spending data points to one clear shift: clients are moving money out of the “holiday” and into the trip itself. Nationwide’s 2026 spending trends report found that travel remains the primary driver of the modern experience economy, with spend holding strongest among affluent segments and travellers over 65, even as appetite for other big-ticket purchases cools. For travel agents, that changes the job. The margin and the loyalty now sit in what clients do each day, not simply where they sleep. Practically, it means building itineraries around three or four anchor experiences, pricing them properly, and holding supplier detail you can defend when a client asks why one private guide costs double another. This post breaks down what the spending pattern shows, and how to turn it into a repeatable research and selling process.
Who This Is For
This is written for independent travel agents, homeworkers within host agencies, and small agency owners selling mid to high-value leisure trips. Typically you handle anywhere from 60 to 300 bookings a year, you work alone or with one or two colleagues, and you sell to repeat clients and referrals rather than cold traffic. Your enquiries increasingly arrive as a mood board or a saved reel, not a resort name. You are already comfortable with air, accommodation and transfers. Where you lose hours is the ground content: finding, verifying and pricing the activities that make a trip feel personal, then presenting them in a way that justifies your fee.
The Research Black Hole Between Enquiry and Quote
The pain is not selling experiences, it is sourcing them. Agents describe the same routine: fourteen browser tabs, three supplier emails still unanswered, an operator quote that arrives in a PDF with no commission stated, and a client asking for options by Friday. “I spent four hours finding one cooking class” is a common complaint, and it is unbillable time. Worse, the research rarely gets reused, so the next Puglia enquiry starts from scratch. Meanwhile the client has already found six travel experiences on social media and expects you to know whether they are any good, whether they are bookable, and what they actually cost.
If your quoting time is being eaten by ground research, see ASTRA in action on a 15-minute demo.
Why Travel Experiences Now Drive the Trip Budget
Affluent traveller spending has reordered itself around access and time. When clients trade a five-night trip for four nights plus a private opening at a gallery, they are not spending less, they are reallocating. Nationwide’s data shows this pattern holding strongest among affluent travellers and the over-65 segment, with spend on experiences and activities outpacing accommodation, even as bigger discretionary purchases get put on hold elsewhere. That is why an itinerary built on room upgrades alone now feels thin.
ASTRA exists for this shift. Rather than researching each experience from scratch across a dozen supplier sites, you research destinations and experience ideas in one place, with rich media, comparison tools and trend intelligence built specifically for travel professionals, not the generic results a client gets from ChatGPT. ASTRA surfaces the operational detail agents get asked about most, group size, duration, accessibility, the context that turns a vague activity idea into something you can confidently build into a proposal. You then layer in your own supplier relationships, confirm availability and commission the way you always have, and save the research so the next enquiry starts from something rather than nothing. It is built for advisors, not for the mass market, which is why the depth sits in the research, not in bookings ASTRA doesn’t make on your behalf.
Reading Experiential Travel Trends Without Chasing Fads
Not every experiential travel trend deserves a place in your itineraries. The durable ones share three traits: they solve for time, they cannot be replicated by the client alone, and they produce a story worth retelling. Private access outside opening hours qualifies. A generic city walking tour does not. Multi-generational formats, single-supplement-friendly small groups and low-alcohol food itineraries are all growing because they answer real constraints in client households, not because they trended.
Test a trend against your own book before you build it in. Look at the last twenty bookings and ask which clients would pay a 15 percent uplift for it. If fewer than three would, treat it as a nice-to-have upsell rather than an anchor. Trends earn their place when they convert twice.
Step by Step: Building an Experience-Led Itinerary
- Qualify on activity, not accommodation. Ask what the client wants to do on day two, who they are travelling with, and what pace suits them. Note dietary needs, mobility and interests before you look at a single hotel.
- Set an experience budget as a percentage of trip spend. For mid to high-value leisure trips, allocating 20 to 30 percent to ground travel experiences keeps the itinerary balanced and prevents last-minute cuts.
- Choose three anchors per week of travel. One food-led, one access-led, one active or restorative. Anchors carry the story. Everything else is filler you can add or remove.
- Verify before you present. Confirm availability windows, group size, guide language and cancellation terms in writing, and record commission at the same time.
- Present two priced versions, not five options. A recommended itinerary and a lighter alternative. Decision fatigue kills conversion faster than price does.
- Save the research to your own library. Tag by destination, interest and price band so the next enquiry starts from something rather than nothing.
What to Watch Out For
- Quoting activities at brochure rates without confirming commission, then absorbing the shortfall to keep the client happy.
- Booking direct with a small operator who has no cancellation policy in writing, which becomes your problem when weather closes the day.
- Overloading day one. Long-haul arrivals plus a full-day guided tour produces complaints, not reviews.
- Assuming a well-reviewed public tour suits a private client. Group size and pace matter more than star ratings at this price point.
- Letting your research live in your inbox. If it is not saved and tagged, you will pay for it again in six weeks.
Quick Checklist
- Add an activity question to your enquiry form, before you ask about hotels.
- Set a standard experience budget percentage and state it in your first client call.
- Build a three-anchor template per destination you sell repeatedly.
- Confirm group size, language, duration and cancellation terms in writing every time.
- Record commission terms alongside every experience you quote.
- Cap presented options at two priced itineraries.
- Tag saved travel experiences by destination, interest and price band.
- Review your last twenty bookings quarterly to see which experiences repeat.
FAQ
What is experiential travel and how is it different from a normal holiday?
Experiential travel means the itinerary is built around what the traveller does and learns, rather than where they stay. A normal holiday leads with the property and treats activities as optional extras. An experiential trip leads with two or three anchor activities, then selects accommodation and transfers to support them. Commercially, it shifts a larger share of trip spend into commissionable ground services.
How much of a trip budget do affluent travellers spend on experiences?
Allocations vary by destination, but 20 to 30 percent of total trip spend on ground experiences is a realistic planning benchmark for mid to high-value leisure travel. Culinary, private-guide and access-led categories absorb the largest share. Affluent traveller spending tends to rise on activities faster than on room nights, especially on repeat visits to a destination.
Do travel agents earn commission on experiences and tours?
Yes, though rates vary widely between operators, DMCs and platforms, typically from 8 to 20 percent. The risk is that commission is often not stated in the initial quote, so agents present rates they cannot earn on. Always confirm the commission position in writing before the itinerary goes to the client.
How do travel agents research experiences faster?
Stop researching per enquiry and start building reusable libraries. Use a research platform like ASTRA to pull together destination and experience detail in one place, then tag and save what you find by destination and interest. Most travel agent experience research time is lost to duplication rather than to discovery.
CONCLUSION
You already know your clients want more than a room. The question is whether your process can deliver it at speed, with margin intact, on the fourth enquiry of the week rather than just the first. Agents who fix their research workflow this season will quote faster in peak, present with more authority, and stop giving away hours they cannot bill. Agents who do not will keep rebuilding the same itinerary from fourteen open tabs. The shift in spending has already happened. The decision left is how you plan to service it.