Latest / Reframe First / Walter Biscardi, Founder of Where’s Walter Travel | Scaling a Travel Agency with Social Media

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Walter Biscardi, Founder of Where’s Walter Travel | Scaling a Travel Agency with Social Media · Reframe First

• Oleksij Rak: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Reframe First. I'm Alexey, the host of the podcast. Let me welcome our today's Biscardi, founder of Where Is Walter Travel? ⁓ Walter. Great having you here. Walter Biscardi: Yeah, how you doing? Thank you so much for inviting me and this is the lovely Orlando, Florida weather behind me right now. Oleksij Rak: Awesome, awesome weather. Thanks a lot for joining. So from what I read and from what I learned about you, you're a travel expert with a specialty in cruises and in corporate retreat and events and customized land travel. And you act kind of like a personal travel agent from what the video understood. It's like kind of providing a personal concierge service. Walter Biscardi: nice. ⁓ Oleksij Rak: from searching where to go, where to stay and how to get there and booking everything and after supporting people on vacation when things occasionally go wrong because they sometimes can go wrong. yeah. It happens. So like, could you tell us more about like how you got there and about ⁓ like Walter travel and about all Walter Biscardi: It does. Yeah. ⁓ Sure. Yeah, so this was not my idea. actually went to school for and I worked in television, film and marketing for over 32 years. ⁓ had my own creative agency in Atlanta, about 20 years. And I built internal creative and marketing for other for a while. And then I 52, ⁓ 53 years old. got laid off from my last company. Oleksij Rak: it Walter Biscardi: And then I couldn't find work for 18 months. And my background has over 13 Emmy awards. has two Peabody awards. So it's not like I was just another guy doing video. We did it to a very high level. But even with that, couldn't find a job over 1,000 resumes on LinkedIn. And then I met a travel agent on a cruise ship who explained, we have this thing here in the United States called host agencies. It's not a franchise, but it's Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. you you Walter Biscardi: It's an opportunity for me to start my own business, but operate under the credentials of a larger agency. And what he was describing sounded a lot like what I used to do with my creative agencies. And I was like, you know what? We've been cruising for 20 years. This sounds like something I could do. And then once I jumped into it, I was all in. But this was not my idea to start with. Just kind of came along three and a half years ago. But once I start something, Oleksij Rak: You Okay. Walter Biscardi: I don't do it halfway. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, awesome. That's a great story. Not great story about not being able to find a job. But that was a push to do something different. Walter Biscardi: Actually, it is a good story. know what? mean, you know, hey, know, when, you know, what I, what I hope that people get out of something like that is just because you can't get a job in your chosen career doesn't mean there's not something else out there for you. There's probably another passion. And for me, travel has been a passion all my life. So, okay, I jumped into it. Oleksij Rak: And from what I've read, you're in operation for three something years, three years and a half. And from what I've seen, the number, you're doing almost double every year, from 50 to 100 % every year. So what's the secret? Walter Biscardi: like that. What the secret? Well, don't think there are, know, ⁓ keep changing, right? Things keep evolving. We got AI tools. have everybody can do everything now almost. But core factors still down to customer service, surprising the client, and building a instead of a funnel. I think so many people are so worried about that funnel, right? There's all these rules and regulations. You work the person down the funnel and you get them in. But then what happens at the bottom of the funnel? OK, you made the sale. Now what? And to me, you want that flywheel because you want that person to come back and keep coming back. And while they're doing that, you want them to spread the word to other people. So for me, it's all about the flywheel. And I'm already setting up the seeds. for my new client to start passing me along to friends and family as I'm trying to make the sale because it's all about the customer service. It's about listening to what they want. And in terms of the travel business with me, I have never paid attention to commission, which is weird because that's how I make my money, right? I get paid commission when you travel. Oleksij Rak: Okay. Okay. Walter Biscardi: With that case, you would think, well, he's going to push all of these high level cruises because they pay the most money. But I don't. pay no attention to it. I make sure that the client goes on the trip that is the best for what they described to me. This is going to meet their needs. Because if I meet their need today, I get another booking tomorrow. And then I get another booking the next day. Whereas if I just go for maximum money right now and I just send them on something that's going to benefit me and not them, I'm going to get one sale. Oleksij Rak: Okay. Mm-hmm. Walter Biscardi: never going to hear from them again. So even with all of these tools, it's still that personal touch. It's still that please the client and surprise and delight. One of my favorite things is when they want to go somewhere and they come to me and say, well, we've already done all the research. We've looked at everything. This is the one we want to go on. And then my first statement is, well, have you looked at this other thing? we didn't know that existed. Oleksij Rak: you . Walter Biscardi: And then we very often will find a different trip that actually suits their needs even more. So I think the secret is just showing up every day, giving the best possible service you can, and always doing right by the client, even with all the technology, even with everything. from a practical standpoint, I built my business on social media, and in particular, TikTok. ⁓ Oleksij Rak: Okay. Walter Biscardi: Yeah, I started out by just simply, five years ago, just simply giving information about cruising. Because we were just starting to cruise again after the big pause. And there was a lot of bad information out there. So I was just sitting at my kitchen table with my little inflatable ships, just giving information so that you could make an informed decision whether you really wanted to get onto a cruise ship. And some of my was like, I wish you were a travel agent. I would totally book with you. Oleksij Rak: you you Walter Biscardi: And it was about that time I met the travel agent. So I can still trace to this day, probably 65 to 70 % of our bookings go back to TikTok in some way, or referred in some way. And we just crossed $9 million in sales in our first three and a half years. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. So yeah, 10 million a year, so that should be a big day. ⁓ Walter Biscardi: Take that for what you will. Yeah, yeah, it's been insane. It really has. I I would have been happy if we got to three million in sales in three years. Nine million. It's just unheard of. It's actually for a home based agency. And that's just me and my wife. Recently, we did add two more associate agents, but primarily me and my wife. And, you know, ⁓ the and the referrals just by doing right by people. They're sending us like so many people now. So yeah, it's been a heck of a ride. Oleksij Rak: Awesome. You mentioned that you started with TikTok, but what is it nowadays? What are the main channels of client acquisition? Especially since you're ⁓ the flywheel, so quite likely you're getting a lot ⁓ the word of mouth from referrals. Walter Biscardi: Well, I mean... Yeah, so one of the things that I did when I was a vice president of marketing for another company was I sought out people on social media who were creating great content that fit the brand. And wasn't necessarily that they were even using our products yet. It was just, wow, you're making really cool content. If I just give you a product, will you just go off and make something? I'm not going to give you any editorial control. You just go and do it. We found that that obviously works really well when you put no pressure ⁓ an influencer or social media content creator. And I was looking for the little guys. I wasn't necessarily going after the big guys. And partnership worked really well. They start to expose your brand, ⁓ and this just talking about it. They're using it, or whatever it is. So with Where's Walter Travel, I was very fortunate that content creators actually noticed us. And they noticed. Oleksij Rak: So. you Walter Biscardi: how we were building our business. They were starting to hear a buzz about us from others and started approaching us and said, hey, we're creating all this content. We have all these people asking, how do you book a cruise? Can we just partner with you and just send them people to you? And we'll just come up with an agreement. And that's what I did. I have a partnership agreement with now six YouTube channels. it's a very simple agreement. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. you Walter Biscardi: you know, every booking that comes to us, they get a portion of our commission. That's all very clean, very simple. not a monthly fee. It's not there's no requirements beyond anything like that. And so that has driven probably driven about maybe 15 percent of our booking. But the social media and the referrals are really what's still driving the engine. The referrals getting to be more and more, you know. My mom said I should call you. My friend said I should call you. Our friends said I should call you. some of those are turning into 20 or 30 cabins with a whole family reunion or an event going on. But those partnership, because that gives us legitimacy. The subscriber count on those six channels that are working with us is about a million subscribers. So that gives us legitimacy that, hey, if I've got 300,000 subscribers and I'm telling you this guy is legit, he must be legit. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Walter Biscardi: ⁓ So that it's all about legitimacy. And then the other thing that I did right away was I established a really nice website. It clearly wasn't just built by throwing in a bunch of prompts and having it built out for me. You know, I had it. It's a very solid website. And it surprised me how many travel agents either don't have a website or they have the most basic website in the world. And then they don't have a professional email. You know, they have travelagency at gmail.com. It's like it should never be. Oleksij Rak: you you Walter Biscardi: a Gmail or a Yahoo or something like that. So I did a couple of things to try to establish us as being a professional agency right from the start, just because how do you trust a guy who's just getting started? You have to establish that somehow. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, for sure. And do you think like your current social media is adding to your legitimacy? Because you basically have like quite large TikTok audience and you have some YouTube audience. Walter Biscardi: Yeah. So, well, actually my TikTok audience is rather small. It's only 26,000, which is, you know, minuscule compared to some of these people in my YouTube audience is only 7,900. So I don't have these massive audiences and I never intended to have a massive audience. I favor quality over quantity. And so I would rather have a hundred people watch my video and two of them book a cruise and get a million hearts and like nothing happens. So. I've always focused the conversion ratio and the conversions that I've seen just based on the number of views that I get. Like my TikTok videos maybe get a thousand on average. They don't get like, I do have some that get a hundred thousand, four hundred thousand, five hundred thousand views when it's a really hot topic. ⁓ if you look at my channel, you will see that the majority of them are probably around a thousand fifteen hundred, but I'm getting to the right people. Number one. Number two, the big secret to our success has been our live streaming almost every week. So almost every Sunday morning for 90 minutes, my wife and I essentially run a cruise, ask me anything, where you just tune in on YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook. We simulstream to all three. And we've had up to 6,000 people tune in on Sundays. We've done about 270 of those now since we launched the company. Oleksij Rak: Okay. you you Walter Biscardi: And then on Thursday night, most Thursday night, I will do a one hour with a travel partner, such as Royal Caribbean, Princess Cruises, Amma Waterways, where we'll do a one hour, basically like a virtual cruise night, but they do a presentation, then you can ask question. And that solidifies my relationship when I say, you know, I know people. I've got Brett from Princess. I've got, you know, Cathy from Royal Caribbean. Like these are people that I actually know. Oleksij Rak: you you Walter Biscardi: And these are the people that if we really need to get something done, these are the people I'm going to be contacting. So it establishes that I am a professional travel agent and I do have these personal connections with these companies. So I think the live stream, I would guess that my live stream bring in up to 40 leads per month. And those are warm leads because they've already seen me. They're actively seeking me out. And 40 leads a month is a lot. for a travel agent to get off something like that. And it's not tire kickers. ⁓ I'll tell you one little secret to my success, and this is a weird one. You can't find my phone number on my website, on my business cards, or any of my social media. You can't call me. You have to make an appointment. And I've done that since day one. And that means that you have to put little effort just to contact me. And that seems to weed out all the people who just want to get a Oleksij Rak: . you Walter Biscardi: quick price than I can go check somebody else. So I hope that answered the question. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, that's amazing coming up I've seen like you that you have a lot of streams now like live streams and now like you explained for what exactly it is and How many like cruise bookings do you have an average like per month and is there a seasonality there should be some? Walter Biscardi: Mm-hmm. I'm sorry, you cut out just a little bit. Can you go ahead and ask the question again and I'll answer. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, sure. How many cruise bookings do you usually have a month like and is there any kind of seasonality? Walter Biscardi: couldn't even tell you how many per month, like a number. The thing about cruise bookings, well, well over 100 a month, probably. But the thing about cruise bookings ⁓ you know, I could book a $1,000 carnival today and then a $100,000 silver see tomorrow. So it's not the number of bookings. It's like, who are you booking and what are the levels? ⁓ biggest single month we've had is 600,000 in a single month. And that's when we opened up our Christmas markets group cruise. That one went insane. Oleksij Rak: Well. Walter Biscardi: But yeah, we get, you know, dozens. I think last year, so for the whole year, we had 750-ish individual last year. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, that's still a lot. And how do you handle it? That's a lot of operations. From what I understand, besides cruise bookings, it's also like how to get there, what to do there, and solving everything that could happen to the traveler. Especially if it's group travelers. How do you handle all this? Walter Biscardi: Yeah, yes. So there's a lot of management. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, how do you manage it? So that's where my television and film background came in. So managing a trip is very similar to developing an original video or original television show. You start with the then you kind of sketch out the idea. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Walter Biscardi: Then we present it to the client and the client goes yes or no, you rework it. Then you film it. Then you do all the editing and you revise it and then you deliver it to the client or the network. And there's all kinds of other steps in between. Well, with travel, it's very similar. You have the intake call. We do our research. We present a proposal. Maybe we go back and forth a little bit on a proposal. We book the trip. Now we have to make sure that you have all the information you need up until that final payment. All right, final payment is now completed. Now after final payment, we need to get you ready to travel. So there's a little bit more information we're going to dribble out to you as we go. And then any issues that come up along the way, I have to take care of them. Like literally right before this show, I was on the phone for an hour with Holland America fixing an issue for a client. So we fix those issues. Now we send them on their merry way. And then we're on standby if they need anything during the trip. And then we. ⁓ Oleksij Rak: . Walter Biscardi: We asked for a survey at the end when they get back and tell us, how was everything? So that's a lot of work. And if we were doing that manually, Rebecca and I would go insane, absolutely insane. I actually started out when I was working in ⁓ industry, ⁓ used ClickUp, I used Workfront, I used Asana, I used Trello, I used everything under the sun. And actually started this company using ClickUp. Oleksij Rak: Hmm. Walter Biscardi: which is really a creative management tool for running projects, but we ran each trip as a project, essentially. And we didn't use any automation. We just kind of had a whole bunch of task reminders for us. And about six months in, I knew this is not going to work for travel long term. And a new company called Turn for Travelers had just come out. I was very intrigued because I saw some work front. I saw some asana. I saw some trailer. I saw like a little bit of Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Okay. Walter Biscardi: of the tools that I liked kind of blended in there and they were literally just getting started and where they were starting from was so far beyond where some of these other tools ever started from. So I was like, ⁓ these guys are starting from a good place. Let me go meet with them. So I met, actually met with the team, very impressed. And now two and a half years later, since we've been running that tool, we have a whole series of automation built in now. So let's say you book a Princess Cruise. You book a Princess Cruise. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. you Walter Biscardi: We put that deposit down. instantly, all I do is just turn on a workflow and immediately your final payment, reminders are set. Your 45 day check-in is set. Your 14 day check-in is set. The email to say, have a great cruise. It's like everything is all set in terms of emails to go out. And that's the biggest part of it right there, especially the final payment. You don't want to forget that, obviously. And so that's how we manage it. And what we do, ⁓ Again, I brought this over from my television days is trip has a unique serial number. We don't do a trip called Walter's Big Family Vacation June 26. ⁓ what if Walter has five trips? Then it's going to be Walter's this trip, Walter's that trip. And then when I go to talk to my wife about, you please check the Walter's Big Trip? Well, which big trip are you talking about? And then we're going to spend five minutes going back and forth going, which trip? Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Walter Biscardi: So every trip has a unique serial number, just a six digit system. so when we're talking internally about trips, we're talking about trip 2569. And there's only one trip, 2569, and we know what that is. ⁓ that's just from a management perspective so I can keep track. And I do have one client in particular. She has 12 trips on the books at all times. And it was ⁓ Agnes blank, we would spend days trying to find it because she had multiple trips on the same cruise line, on the same ships. Oleksij Rak: Okay. you Walter Biscardi: So that would get very confusing. So turn for travelers is our big secret weapon. use that to run our entire business. And then the other side of that is I just briefly earlier about the host agency model, how we can book under ⁓ a bigger credentials. That company is Travel Group. out of Cleveland, Ohio. They have a tremendous support system. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Walter Biscardi: tremendous support system. So they have our back. So that's what makes me feel very comfortable that we can keep pushing harder and harder. And if I need any training, if I need any advice, if I need any anything, KHM is right there. And they some of the best travel agent support. mean, they have just some of the best support ever. I never had support like this when I ran my own company before. It's just nice to have that company back there. And yeah. I think that's how we do it. It's mainly turned for travelers and then having the support of KHM. Oleksij Rak: Awesome, awesome and like From what I see, you're still scaling quite fast, but still what's preventing you from scaling even better? Is it like sales channels or is it like amount of work? Walter Biscardi: The only thing that's really keeping us is it's finding the right people. ⁓ know, there are a lot of people who suddenly got into travel as everything was restarting, but they got in it for the wrong reason. They got in it because what's in it for me? I want some free trips. I want to be able to go here for free. I want to get this perk. I want to get that perk. And it was all about me, me, me, me, me. And that's the wrong reason to get into travel because Oleksij Rak: Bye. Walter Biscardi: I mean, if you think about it, don't know what it's like where you are, but where we are, know, people might only get two weeks off a year. And if you screw up their vacation, I that very personally. I mean, it terrifies me to potentially screw up somebody's vacation. And so trying to find the right people who have that same passion, that same drive, that it's not about me. If I do, ⁓ the is if you do everything right, commissions, everything else will take care of itself. but you got to do right by people. So the biggest issue for me scaling right now, I have two associate agents that are now booking with us. I'd like to get two more and then I need a full-time assistant. I can get my full-time assistant and I can get two more associate agents, I think we can go from, we came just short of 4 million in sales last year. I think we could push even as high as 10 million a year in sales. if I can get two more associates and another assistant. Oleksij Rak: So it's like, it's amount of hands that can do work. it's not sales limitation. Walter Biscardi: I mean, it's, you know, it's what a $10 billion industry really the limitation is, is, you know, global situations, right? My entire career is predicated the free ability to travel the world. And as we're seeing right now, that not necessarily the case. And I clients right now who are like, well, I don't want to go to the Western Mediterranean right now. I'd like to stick with the Eastern Mediterranean. So while all this looks great on the books, I never lose sight of the fact that, these are ⁓ based on the fact that people are going to be able to travel this year, next year. I have bookings in 2028. And so the only limitation is being able to freely travel the world and freely travel where these people want to go. And if they can't, All their bookings don't matter because they're just going to go away and I'm not going to get paid. So that's really the biggest limitation for us right now. Oleksij Rak: geopolitical. yeah. I've heard it like a few times already, especially like yesterday I had a call with a lady from, with founder of FX Yaks. They are operating in Caribbean and in Mediterranean and they say that they have a decline in sales in Mediterranean because of last 11 days. What's happening there? Walter Biscardi: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, it's insane. It's insane. And that's the only thing that terrifies me is it all looks great on the books and everybody's like, Congratulations, Walt, this is amazing. You know, this is awesome. And it's like, they still got to go, you know, these people still need to travel or I don't make a dime. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, sure. Like with regards to the trends, so we touched the geopolitical situation. You started the operation since probably right ⁓ COVID, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And ⁓ do you see that's changed over period of time? ⁓ What the biggest shifts in the... Walter Biscardi: Yeah. I did. October of 2022, we launched. I think some of the, well, obviously we're getting much bigger ships now than we've ever had before. That's the one thing. think, I think the cruise lines, at least in the Caribbean, certainly, and maybe a little bit in Europe, they're trying to make the ship the destination so that you may not necessarily leave the ship and you'll spend more money. ⁓ Like I think if they could, American cruise lines would do cruises to nowhere like they do in Singapore. ⁓ Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Walter Biscardi: where they don't even go to an island because we don't want to, we just want you to stay on the ship and spend all your money. I think there's been a big emphasis, especially on your Royal Caribbean, Disney, Norwegian, Carnival, to make the ship more of a destination so people don't leave the ship. We're giving them so much to do, we want them to stay on the ship ⁓ ⁓ enjoy the ship. And to me, that's okay once in a while. I mean, yes, is it fun to get on an icon of the seas and just stay on it for all seven days? Yeah, it is, because there's so much to do. Oleksij Rak: you Walter Biscardi: But that kind of loses what cruising used to be all about, which was, you know, exploring new destinations and going to new places. Now the smaller cruise lines are starting to pick that up. But what we're starting to see ⁓ especially since the restart, people are putting more emphasis on sort of bucket list trips. You know, we're we're doing that Antarctica trip now. We're doing that Africa Safari. We're doing, you know, we now want to go on. We don't want to do that seven day Caribbean anymore. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Walter Biscardi: want to go to other places. And so we're starting and we're starting to see a real emphasis on quality and service versus, you know, just the same like I've always done Royal Caribbean, I'm going to do Royal Caribbean. It's like, well, I'm going to Norway. I know Royal Caribbean does it, but I'd like to get a better experience. So we are starting to see if I'm going to spend this money, I'd like to spend it on quality versus just the same old same old. So here in the States, Certainly trying to make the ship the destination by making them bigger and bigger. But then at the same time, think clients are still getting out there to explore the world and do longer. I think our average cruises are starting to push out to like 13 to 17 days now, where they were always seven in the beginning. And I think that's pretty cool. One client just booked a 60 day trip, ⁓ round trip from the US around Australia and back. That's awesome. That's awesome. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. 60 day, yeah. Yeah, I've also heard that one. I had a chat with a guy from Norway. He's running local tours around the fjords and he said like they opened just another business ⁓ They running like seven to 10 days like tours. And now they have like ⁓ one experiences for the cruise industry because like a lot of cruise is coming to Norway. Walter Biscardi: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oleksij Rak: and they have another business segment to satisfy the needs of these customers. So yeah, it definitely happens. else do you ⁓ in the market? ⁓ Walter Biscardi: Yeah. Yeah. What else am I seeing in the market? Well, like I said ⁓ there is a push now to get the value, I think. think people are starting to realize, there's this whole nickel and diming that comes out all the time, especially over here. That is probably the biggest topic of conversation, ⁓ nickel dime. ⁓ There's saying, you pay one price to get on the ship, you pay another price to get off the ship. And that's really Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. You Walter Biscardi: becoming a bigger number now. It's a bigger stretch than what it used to be. And I've noticed on some of the cruise lines, like we were just on a Norwegian cruise, the Norwegian Encore, and I've never had so many sales flyers at my door for a seven day cruise. There was like three or four a day, buy this, do this, buy this. There's a real emphasis on these cruise lines to get you to spend more. And there is... at least for my clients are starting to push back saying enough, I'm getting tired of constantly being sold. I just want to go and have a cruise. I want to go and relax. What else is there out there? you know, the answer was Virgin Voyages because it was nice and quiet. It was relaxed. There was no sales pressure. But even there, clients like, well, what else is smaller? Maybe, maybe just really relaxing. So the push to get away, I don't mind spending a little bit more. If I'm not going to be pressured to buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. mean, it's getting to be like a little bit ridiculous. Even I would say it's getting to be a little bit ridiculous. Some of the stuff that they're trying to get you to do some of the stuff they're trying to get you to buy. mean, the Iris photo, I don't know if anybody's been on a cruise lately, but they want to take a picture of your eye and then put your eyes next to why, why do we need that? We don't really need that. Um, but I think, I think that's it. It's just getting a quality trip now. It's not about just get the cheapest trip. Let me get a quality trip where I can get exactly where if I want to relax and do nothing, I can relax and do nothing. If I want to go all day long, fine, let's get you on an icon of the season. You go all day long, but it's it that that is the big push. I'm sick of nickel and diming. What else have you got? Oleksij Rak: Yeah, I see. That's what big cruise companies do. Do you see any change in behavior of the travelers, especially with the new regeneration? Because they are used to access information really, really fast, and they come prepared, and they are demanding, and then they want it now. They will not wait. Walter Biscardi: Mm-hmm. Hmm Oleksij Rak: So you're not ready to wait for three days to use the white itinerary. Walter Biscardi: What's interesting is the newer generation, what is it? Gen Z? I can't keep it up with all the letters, right? Whatever letter is the new one, the up and coming, actually using travel advisors more than just about any other, ⁓ they're quicker to use a travel advisor. I think because, well, one, they're all busy, right? They're all doing like 20 different things and I just don't have the time to research. Or Oleksij Rak: Yeah. All right then. Walter Biscardi: If they do go in to do the research, they get very confused very quick because there's just information overload. You know, you're trying to like you say, well, I want to go on Royal Caribbean. OK, well, which of the 27 ships do you want to go on? Oh, I didn't know there were 27. Where do you want to go? I don't know. When do you want to go? I don't know. It's like all of these things come into play. And then they're like, oh, I want to go on this ship. They get it all settled. And then they realize, oh, it doesn't sail out of Los Angeles. It only sails out of Florida. But I want to go out of Los Angeles. And I think there's an information overload. And it's funny how the younger generation is like, you take care. almost like what it's almost like Uber eats ⁓ something like that. ⁓ don't want to deal with driving to the restaurant to go get the food. Let me have somebody else bring it to me. It's almost like the same mindset with travel. I don't want to deal with all this. Here's what I want to do. You figure it out and tell me where we're going. and I that especially with the younger generation. my generation, maybe a little bit younger, I see a lot of people who have planned their own trips and they come to me and go, well, I've never used a travel agent before, but all these people say I should, so let me just try it. And usually win those people over on the first trip, because they're like, well, we didn't realize that you would just like literally take care of everything and I don't have to do a thing. Or you this other cruise that we had absolutely no idea existed. Oleksij Rak: Shh. Walter Biscardi: for less than what we were gonna do or for maybe a little bit more, but it's a better cruise. So, I mean, I don't see any shifts away, even though it's getting easier and easier to plan your own trips. There's so many moving parts to it that we have that generation that's just used to somebody else doing it for me. Let me order that meal have somebody bring it to me. Let order it from Amazon, let them bring it to me. Oleksij Rak: you you Walter Biscardi: So let me just let Walt take care of it and tell me where I'm going. So I think, I think, I don't think the travel agent is going to go away. think if anything, the ease of use has made it easier for us to sell our services because there are so many ways. Like who do you book with? Do you book it with, you know, booking.com? Do you use these guys, those guys, those guys? What's the difference between all these things? And if I, you know, think there's just too many ways for people to go out there and book. And if they can just go to one guy or one woman. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. . Walter Biscardi: or one company and just say, you know me now. I want to go to Italy in October. You know what my style is. Go find me a ship. OK, I'll take care of that. You go about your day and I'll let you know in a day or two. So I think there's a real there's a real comfort factor to that. And there's also OK, he's taking care of it. I'm going to go do this other thing. Oleksij Rak: How many other moving parts regards to booking the trips that you mentioned? You to understand for which it starts, ⁓ what companies there, what ships are there, how many moving parts are there to successfully book ⁓ a What's level of complexity? Because it's... Walter Biscardi: Wait, I made it. Oleksij Rak: Kind of everything is present on like like booking platform, segregators and stuff. ⁓ is it so hard for new generation to ⁓ book ⁓ Walter Biscardi: You're right, right. Yeah, well, you know, one of the things that we do, always tell everybody that we're travel partner, first of all, because there's some people, they literally come to me with a spreadsheet, right? They've got it all planned out and all this stuff. So I tell everybody that, we're a partner. ⁓ will do as much or as little as you want. ⁓ know, some of the moving parts, obviously, you may need travel from their home to the airport, transfers from the airport to the hotel that, you know, we got to get in my hotel because you're Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Walter Biscardi: You're almost always going to come into that port city at least one day early. And for a lot of my clients that are flying to Europe or destinations beyond, they want to spend two or three days. So I got to find them a hotel. I might need to figure out some tours and some transfers and things like that within the city or the destination. It might even be a full blown land tour. have booked some where there is like a five or six or seven day land tour. Oleksij Rak: the Yeah. Walter Biscardi: that happened before or after the cruise and that's all. then we got to figure out how those interconnect. I've got to get them to the ship. if they have questions, ⁓ one, I got to get them to the ship, but also they need to understand what's on the ship, ⁓ available to you, when do you book things and all of that. That's where TURN comes in. TURN does a lot of AI work on the front end. So when I build a proposal, it pulls in everything about every single ship. Oleksij Rak: you . Walter Biscardi: So that's awesome. So when I first sent a proposal to a client and they open it up, they're like, ⁓ my God, you've got deck plans, you've got the restaurants, you've got all this stuff. And they don't know that I didn't do anything. All I did was just drag it in and boom, there it is. And then they may need transfers ⁓ the cruise to either get to an airport or maybe they're to do some more tours. And then of course they're going to fly home. Maybe they want that transportation. We've actually done it where it's literally door to door. You know, I got a car is going to come pick you up, going to take you to the airport. everything's going to happen and a car is going to pick you up and take you home. So there are a lot of moving parts. There's a lot of logistics. There's a lot of do you think about this tour? Should we do this? Should we do that? Especially when they're comparing cruise line tours through the independent tours. And of course you don't want to miss the ship. And so there's always a lot of discussion about that. The biggest thing that we talk about is travel insurance to make sure that they are protected in the case that's ⁓ they have to cancel or happened. We just had that. took ⁓ a group to Hawaii ⁓ in February and one of my clients had to cancel two weeks before the cruise because his dad took a turn for the worse. And luckily he got the travel insurance and he got paid his claim before we even got on the ship. So that's actually probably the biggest, the biggest moving part is convincing people. What I like to say to them is you don't need travel insurance until you need travel insurance and that is too late. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. you Walter Biscardi: So that's probably one of the biggest moving parts. yeah, it's just all those, the cruise is easy. Now getting to there and out of there and all the things that happen in between, that's where leaning on the expertise. I get emails all the time. What would you suggest? How are we going to do this? How are we going to do this? I just had a client wrote to me before the show and she was all concerned. She was like, this person can't go and I've got to change this and I've to change that. I've got to change all this other stuff. I was like, OK. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Walter Biscardi: That'll be done by the end of the day. OK, great. you that's those are was just a whole bunch of moving parts. She's got an Alaska cruise tour and she's got 11 people flying out of different airports, all meeting up in different places. And I had to arrange all the flights and the transfers and everything. And she was concerned as she was throwing me the big curveball. And it was like, no, that's actually not that big of a deal. I just call the cruise line and we'll take care of it. So so, yeah. Oleksij Rak: Okay. Walter Biscardi: I don't know how many moving parts are there? A lot. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, I hear. Do you automate it somehow for yourself? Because that's a lot of moving parts. Walter Biscardi: Mm-hmm. Oleksij Rak: booking flights for 11 people is already a lot of work. then there is accommodation, then there are tours, then there is cruise ship, and getting back. Walter Biscardi: I hate booking flights. I'll be honest. I hate booking flights, but I do it because they want me to. Yeah. Yes, yes. And it's the worst when, you know, like there's something happens and now we've got to try changing the flights or something like that. I've been fortunate, you know, that we've had minimal of that. But and the flights are an interesting animal because the flights we get no commission on that, you know, zero. The airlines don't pay us anything. And never tell the clients that. But it's something that we're going to do. Oleksij Rak: Hmm. Yeah. Walter Biscardi: because it's part of the trip and we're going to provide that value add. And if you want me to book the flights. But one of the things again, you know, I said I'm a partner with my clients. I know that booking through my third party booking engine that I have to use, I don't see every flight and my rates might be a little bit higher. So what I actually do right up front with my clients, I'll tell them, here's the airline. These are the flight numbers that I found. If you want to go look at the airline and if you get a better rate from the airline, go ahead and book it. And they're like, OK, this is great. And sometimes they do. And then sometimes they're like, no, your rate's better. Go ahead and book it. So that's part of being a partner, just not automatically just saying, yep, you want me to do this. I'm going to charge you money. It's like, this is what I found. You might be able to find it cheaper. Take this information to see if you can find something. And if they do, and that's just a win-win. They love that. Oleksij Rak: And I'm all of that is because with the HFEI, it's not only about helping you to write or build some simple stuff. Nowadays, ⁓ it's getting more more agentic. Are you afraid that your will replaced by agent? ⁓ Because this is like... Walter Biscardi: Yeah. haha Oleksij Rak: It's becoming agentic and are getting used to working with AI agents who get more and smarter day, I would say. And these advanced tools, they can ⁓ kind build. There be no human touch, there will be no nothing, but still it ⁓ can be cheaper. ⁓ Walter Biscardi: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, probably know already, mean, AI is not perfect. ⁓ And it takes somebody with knowledge to know when it gets it wrong. Like, and I keep saying today, but I actually did all these things today. I just did a, I've had an Alaska packing ⁓ and thing that we send out to all our clients. And I've had it for like two years and I knew it needed to be refreshed. ⁓ And so working with Claude. Oleksij Rak: This. Yeah. Walter Biscardi: And I throw it in there and we're working back and forth. And we came up with an absolutely, I was like, wow, this is a really, this is better than anything I developed. But it's a lot of my information is information it pulled in. But there was a whole big thing about passports that was 100 % wrong. And if I didn't know that, then I would have just sent that off to a client and the client would have been like, wait, we need passports for every single cruise to Alaska. It's like, no, actually you don't. only need them if you start or end in Canada. Oleksij Rak: Thank Walter Biscardi: And I find AI gets things wrong. Like AI will get ⁓ outdated information, it just simply misunderstands what it's seeing, and then it presents it to you in such a way that it's not right. So you ⁓ have to have that knowledge. ⁓ think AI is just a great augmenter. It makes all of us look better if you use it the correct way. But I don't think it can replace Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Zoom. Walter Biscardi: a true travel agent. Because there are horror stories out there, and I've seen them on social media, where the AI gave you this whole wonderful itinerary. You go to execute it, and half of it is wrong, or is outdated, or the trains aren't running on that day, or the taxis aren't really there, or the thing isn't even there. It's not even open. I've seen these horror stories with AI, just people totally relying on it. And it's like, Yes, we rely on it to get information, but then we go and verify and make sure that if it says this thing is going to be there, right? So, but like my AI, ⁓ I'm sorry. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, but AI is about what you put in. if you put something... Like on one of interviews, I got a saying like, shit in, shit out. If you put something wrong in, and it's trained on all these radis and stuff, and if you train it on the wrong information, it has wrong information. But what happens when ⁓ it gets trained on the wrong information? Walter Biscardi: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Oleksij Rak: That's why I was asking about all the moving parts and so on and so forth. day somebody could train it on the correct information and it will be using up-to-date tools, up-to-date information and will be able to provide itineraries and make the correct bookings. ⁓ What is that will differ as a human travel agent versus AI one? Walter Biscardi: Yeah. Mm-hmm. It might. Well, mean, the AI tool will can currently, I mean, it can currently make your itineraries. I don't know if it can book anything for you, but it can currently make itineraries and they may or may not be correct. But in the future, I don't know if AI is going to be able to actually book. It probably will. But what will it do on the follow up? when like today, you know, my clients like, ⁓ this person isn't coming. This isn't happening. That isn't how is AI going to go ahead and contact Holland America and stay on the phone with Holland America for an hour waiting while the supervisors go back and forth and try and then the supervisor misunderstood what we wanted. So I had to explain it again. And then they had to fix that. So that's where I don't know how that's going to work when it comes to the resolutions. And also, AI can't actually take the trip. Oleksij Rak: Okay. Walter Biscardi: So we've been on 14 different cruise lines. We've been on well over 40 cruises. So AI can look at the Royal Caribbean icon of the seas and go, well, based on all the parameters you gave us, this is exactly the ship for you. But I don't want to have a lot of children on my cruise. is sending you on a ship with 2,000 children. So that may not be the best vacation. ⁓ I don't think anything is ever going to replace the human actually going. and experiencing understanding that when you tell me this is what I want, this is the type of ship I want and this is I want to go, I don't think anything replaces the human factor of actually going and seeing the ships in person, going on the ship. What is the service really like? I can look at all these reviews and I can see all these amazing reviews on celebrity. But until I go on a celebrity ship and I see what these people are actually like, you don't understand that. ⁓ Oleksij Rak: Yep. Walter Biscardi: So AI is going to do a lot more, but it's just for me, I still think that human touch is still going to be required in order to service you continuously. AI will probably get it right sometime, but when things go wrong, that's what I'm curious about. What happens when things go wrong or I need to make a bunch of changes. Oleksij Rak: With regards to children of the ship, it's just another parameter, but with regards to solving problems that you mentioned, like stay with somebody on the phone and ask them to go check. Ships themselves are not ⁓ ready for AI to solve problems. Walter Biscardi: Yeah. ships are different man. But you go on the Oceania Serenna with 700 people and you go on, know, Royal Caribbean, that's two completely different animals. And what's it really like at night? Well, I can tell you it's, you know, it's quiet. So yeah, yeah. Oleksij Rak: see it. Where do you think the market is moving? are your predictions about next year? Because it is changing, definitely. ⁓ Walter Biscardi: Thank Well, I mean, you know, the family lines, like I said, they're definitely looking to go bigger and bigger. There's a real push here in the States to get their private islands up and running so we don't have to go to other countries anymore. We're just going to going to build the ship for eight thousand people. We're going to keep you on our ship and then we're going to take you to our island and maybe one or two others. So that's that's a big push here in the States. I think in the rest of the world, the push ⁓ is. to go to more unique and different destinations. The same old, same old. It's just not working. Carnival Corporation just announced they're going to Africa. would have ⁓ and Carnival in the same sentence. It's not something I ever thought I'd hear. But this is what you're starting to see. We're going to make bigger ships. We're going to keep everybody on our ships in the Caribbean. But now, when we go to the rest of the world, we need to find different ports because everybody's getting tired of going to the same port, same itinerary, same this, same that. That's what I'm seeing. Like we're seeing a lot of very unique itineraries, you know, starting in one place, ending in another, but that are like 12, 13, 14, 15 days long. Whereas in the past they were always seven. Let's just go seven days, go back and forth, get everybody. But those are the two big, big things that I see at least in cruising ⁓ that the ⁓ is becoming more and more the destination and let's keep people in our ecosystem. And then let's see how we can change. Oleksij Rak: Shh. . Walter Biscardi: these itineraries to take people to different ports that they haven't been to, but keep them on our brand. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, I see. see. And what else besides the ships itself, like with different generations, maybe with AI, maybe, like what other trends do you see will be like the most dominant in coming year or two? Walter Biscardi: I mean, technology obviously on the ships has become dominant. When we first started cruising, was like a luxury and now it's a necessity. Everybody's got to good Wi-Fi. So that's big. And the technology on the ships themselves had become absolutely amazing. ⁓ that's I think some of that younger generation is like, ⁓ this is not what I thought it was. I thought cruising was what? Oleksij Rak: Yeah Walter Biscardi: Cunard used to be where everybody dressed up in suits and gowns and went to dinner and did all of that. And it's like, no, now you've got Broadway shows, you've got fireworks, you've got big parties taking place up on the thing. We've got roller coasters, we've got all this stuff. Or if you don't want any of that stuff, we've got these really beautiful ships like the Silver Sea Silver Ray, which is a five star resort on the water. And it's just like going to a Caribbean beach resort, except the ship's gonna glide along the water for you. The technology within the ships are making them just over the top, stunning, giving new options for people. The restaurant, I think that's the other part that's really drawing people in too. The food game has been elevated so high that everybody thinks they're a foodie now. when you've got these unique dining experiences, that's what a lot of them are trying to do now. Let's get a unique dining experience. Let's get a different dining experience. And is technology having anything to do with that? Probably, because they can do more in smaller spaces. I think, and the other thing they're doing too, they're taking a lot of their older ships and they're bringing them up. They're not just letting these ships just continually run and run and run. Now that they bring them in to dry dock, they're starting to enhance. Like even the old ships have amazing Wi-Fi now. They're adding ⁓ all screens in the theaters to make these shows even more amazing than they used to be. out by the pool. all getting these gorgeous state of the art screens so we can have movies out there, we can have shows, can watch sporting events. So what I like that I see, I think Celebrity is a great example, they're investing $250 million per ship for their Solstice class, which is a great class of ships. They've been around almost 20 years. They do need a refresh. And they're not just refreshing it. They're putting $250 million to reinvent spaces, to reinvent experiences on the ship. Oleksij Rak: Shh. Walter Biscardi: adding new venues, revising old venues, and things like that. So I think that's what's going to keep attracting people like, ⁓ wow, they've just added this. ⁓ they've added that. And when you bring that all the way down to the smaller ship, Royal Caribbean is finally going to introduce a new small ship class, hopefully next year. And I can't wait, because they've done all this amazing technological advances going all the way up to the icon class. I've said, man, if they take all that stuff and now bring it down into a smaller ship, it's going to be incredible. So waiting to see that. So I think the technology has really come along in your Wi-Fi, your touch, all the touch that you can do, entertainment and enhancement on the ship, and then just all of the things that you can do, making a much better experience for the audience. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, sounds amazing. Awesome, awesome. And I left this last question the end. If somebody will be watching this, like... Walter Biscardi: Hmm. Oleksij Rak: How much can I earn as an agent if it's not a secret of the commission? Can I earn off a commission? You're not charging your clients anything, but you're definitely getting a commission if it's not a secret. Walter Biscardi: Wait, how much can they what as an agent? No, I don't charge anything. what I'll tell you, ⁓ it's not really a secret because at KHM Travel Group, we have levels that you can do. And those levels are based on commission. what I'll tell you ⁓ ⁓ first of all, it takes about 18 months, maybe 24 months just to get it going where you're getting a steady paycheck. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Okay. Walter Biscardi: ⁓ I am a freak of nature. Nobody else built a business this fast. still don't know how we did it, but we did it. In a brand new startup agency is lucky, ⁓ is having good year if you sell 250 to $500,000 worth ⁓ of sales the first year. Like that, that's an amazing year. We did 1.5 million. So that was like beyond. But it still took 18 to 24 months to start making money because they have to travel. right? So I don't get paid until you travel. Just because I made the booking today, you're traveling in 2028. My money's coming to me in 2028. But I will tell you, the KHM travel group has these levels based on commission and the Diamond Elite level is a minimum of 250,000 in earned commission and I was Diamond Elite for 2025. I won't give you an exact amount, but I will tell you that I'm at Diamond Elite level at KHM. Oleksij Rak: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I was rather wondering like what percentage of the like trip value, but Walter Biscardi: It's different based on the travel partner. You know, got different percentage levels and then for something you got bonus commission and but you have to keep in mind for every cancellation that's commission that's taken out of my pocket. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Let's go. Yeah. Thanks a lot for sharing all this information. That was a really great discussion. I expected it to be like 30, 40 minutes, but we are closing ⁓ an hour. So it kept going. ⁓ Walter Biscardi: course. Hahaha I can't shut up. I'm sorry. I love this stuff. I love traveling and I love talking about it. And I love talking about technology. And I'm so thankful that you reached out. Thank you. Oleksij Rak: Thank you too. Is there anything else you would like to add on top of that before we wrap up? Walter Biscardi: All I can tell you is if you folks need some help with travel, reach out at Where's Walter Travel. ⁓ whatever you do, work with a travel agent because we're here to help you have a great vacation. So thanks so much for inviting me. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, and it's cost free. Awesome, awesome. Yeah, so thanks. Yeah, thanks a lot, Basu. ⁓ and have a great day. Walter Biscardi: That was great! My pleasure. Yeah, you too. best of luck to you. Seriously, best of luck to you over there. hope you and your family and everything stay safe and be well over there. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, thanks. Appreciate it. Okay, bye. Walter Biscardi: Alright. Bye.