WESTA Travel Consortium

WESTA Travel Consortium Westa can help you build your dream agency with support, education, and the tools to serve your clients better and easier.

09/04/2026

Your clients can book a trip on their phone in five minutes.

The only reason they come to you instead is you, so your content should make that obvious.

Four things worth posting more of: your own travels (show that you actually live this), the trips you’ve planned for other clients (proof, not promises), the specific services you provide (do you handle the rebooking at 2am? say so), and the fact that a real human, you, is the one doing the work.

That’s what turns a passive follower into someone who fills out your inquiry form. Most advisors under-share all four. So, honest question: are you?

Save this as your content checklist for the week.

09/03/2026

The most visited page on Westa’s entire site is the events page, and once you’ve seen one, you get why. ⁠
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This is the annual summit: not a fluorescent convention hall, but a working event held on a cruise, this year sailing Alaska. ⁠
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There’s a reason it’s on a ship. You’re meant to actually experience the kind of product you sell, so you can sell it better. And the people in these clips aren’t stock faces, they’re the members you’ll call when you’re stuck and the leadership who’ll pick up. ⁠
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That room is a big part of what you’re joining.⁠
Want to be in it next time? Katie can tell you what’s on the calendar.⁠
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09/02/2026

Most advisors picture a consortium as something you graduate into once you are already huge. Luxury only, invitation-feel, minimums that assume you have made it.

That is not what this is.

The advisors who join Westa are usually mid-sized, independent, and past the point where doing everything alone still makes sense. What they have in common is intent to grow and a willingness to use the tools once they have them.

The rest of it, enhanced commissions, amenity programs, supplier access, year-end overrides, and real people who answer the phone, is not a reward for already being big. It is how you get bigger.

Most of our members say they wish they had known that sooner.

Westa members: your next travel education session is booked. 📅Join us live on September 2nd as CIE Tours walks through:🌍...
09/01/2026

Westa members: your next travel education session is booked. 📅

Join us live on September 2nd as CIE Tours walks through:
🌍 What they offer and how it fits into your bookings
📚 Learning opportunities built for your agency
💬 A live Q&A with their team, so bring your questions

This is the kind of direct access that comes with owning your consortium instead of just belonging to one.

Not a Westa member yet? Now's a good time to see what that access looks like. Link in bio to learn more.

Mike has spent decades watching travel advisors build agencies, and this is the thing he sees skipped most often.If you ...
09/01/2026

Mike has spent decades watching travel advisors build agencies, and this is the thing he sees skipped most often.

If you never chose an entity, you still chose one. Selling travel under your own name makes you a sole proprietor by default, which means there is no legal line between the business and everything you personally own.

An LLC draws that line. It is usually inexpensive to form, and it is the single most common gap we see in newer agencies.

An S corporation is not a different entity. It is a tax election an LLC can make. It can reduce self-employment tax once your profit is high enough to justify running payroll, and below that threshold it mostly creates paperwork.

State rules vary enough that general advice stops being useful quickly. And no host agency or consortium membership extends its legal protection to you personally. That part is yours.

This is the first in a five-part series on the back-office work most advisors learn the hard way. Next up, bookkeeping.

None of this is legal or tax advice. Talk to a CPA or attorney licensed in your state before you make the call.

08/31/2026

Growing your agency shouldn’t cost you your evenings and weekends. Here’s a path that actually holds up.

Start where you are, a host is a fine place to learn the ropes and make your early mistakes on someone else’s systems. Then get specific: pick a niche and build repeatable systems instead of chasing every lead that lands in your inbox, because the generalist grind is what burns people out. Protect your time by raising what you keep, not just what you sell.

And when you’ve outgrown the training wheels, graduate into ownership so your next level of growth compounds for you, not for a host skimming a cut. Standing out is mostly about doing less, better.⁠
Which step are you on right now? Katie can help you find the next one.⁠
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08/26/2026

$500 a year sounds like a cost until you put it next to what it returns. Katie reframes it the way she'd want any advisor to: it's not a fee, it's an investment in a business you're already running. Put it in real terms. O

ne enhanced commission on a single luxury booking can cover the whole year's membership. One supplier override at year end can dwarf it. Now compare that to a host taking 20 to 30% of every commission you earn, all year long, and a flat $500 starts to look like the cheapest line on your books. Katie breaks down exactly what to weigh it against.

Want to run the numbers for your own book? Katie will do it with you, no pitch.

Katie hears the same three myths on nearly every call, and each one quietly keeps good advisors from a move that would p...
08/26/2026

Katie hears the same three myths on nearly every call, and each one quietly keeps good advisors from a move that would pay off. ⁠
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One: consortia require quotas. Not here, you choose the programs that fit your business. ⁠
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Two: they lock you into vendors. Wrong, Westa's supplier network is vetted for quality, not forced on you, and you still decide who you book. ⁠
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Three: joining costs you your independence. The opposite is true, you keep your own brand, your own clients, and the relationships you built, and you gain a team behind you. Swipe through for the honest version of each.⁠
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Which of these were you told was true? Katie will set the record straight.⁠
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08/24/2026

At a 15,000-advisor network, a stuck booking becomes a support ticket and you wait your turn. Here’s what happened at Westa instead. A member had a client stranded on a supplier issue. They called Katie. Katie flagged Josh. Josh emailed the supplier directly, and because Westa’s relationships are real and his name carries weight, it was resolved that same day. That’s not a premium tier you pay extra for, it’s structural.

Westa is small enough that leadership picks up, and still connected enough that when Josh or Mike calls a cruise line, they get a fast yes. When your client is panicking, that access is the whole ballgame.⁠

That’s hard to picture until you’ve had it. Ask Katie what it looks like in practice.⁠
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Address

135 E Historic Columbia River Highway
Troutdale, OR
97060

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5:30pm
Tuesday 8am - 4pm
Wednesday 9am - 5:30pm
Thursday 9am - 5:30pm
Friday 9am - 5:30pm

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+15032518170

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