During Dream Vacations/CruiseOne’s 2025 National Conference aboard the brand-new Star Princess, World Travel Holdings Co-CEO/Chairman Brad Tolkin sat down with Recommend for a wide-ranging conversation on the thriving leisure travel industry, changing traveler behavior, the role of AI and why travel advisors remain more essential than ever.
Recommend magazine: The theme of this conference is “thrive.” What does “thrive” mean to you in this context, and what do you think it means to advisors?
Brad Tolkin: I think one of the reasons we chose the word “thrive” is that the leisure travel industry in general is thriving. Despite global disruption—political, economic, technological—the sector continues to show incredible resilience.
In fact, several weeks ago Delta Air Lines announced their earnings and it surprised Wall Street to the upside. They specifically cited the strength of leisure travel. And when you listen to the Disney public earnings reports, for years, they never mentioned their cruise line; now they highlight it every quarter. The leisure travel industry is very healthy.
I think there has been a reset in people’s budgets; on how they allocate it. People aren’t necessarily earning more—but they’re allocating more of what they have to travel.
Recommend magazine: How can travel advisors take this word “thrive” and use it as a guiding light for their work going into 2026?
Tolkin: I don’t know if this word will be a guiding light. I think the guiding lights are focus and passion. The word itself is more of a statement of what is going on in terms of leisure travel…so [advisors] have the ability to thrive more because the fish are biting.
Recommend magazine: You mentioned that growth isn’t limited to luxury travel. What does your data say about the middle-class traveler?
Tolkin: World Travel Holdings sells over $2.5 billion in leisure travel a year. That’s not $2.5 billion in luxury. Luxury cruise inventory represents only 7–8 percent of the market. It is “Main Street America” that is supporting the leisure travel industry.
Recommend magazine: Why do you think the middle class is so committed to traveling right now—even with economic uncertainty?
Tolkin: You know, it’s not that they aren’t worried about their pocketbooks. Home ownership is down, so more people are renting. And I think travel and moments versus things are just more important to them today than they were. I think there is a resetting because of what we all lived through four years ago. If I might choose two words that probably you can’t say 10 times fast—there’s a “mindset reset.”
Recommend magazine: What are you seeing across generations? Is Gen X buying the same way Baby Boomers are? What about Millennials?
Tolkin: Obviously, the type of travel that people take is different from generation to generation, but today’s average cruise age is below the age of 50.
Recommend magazine: Advisors have a lot of competing forces around them—online booking, influencers, social media. What truly differentiates the travel advisor today?
Tolkin: It’s personalization; it’s the personal touch. Influencers don’t do that. Influencers are recommending—they’re recommending a place to go. That’s exciting people, and that excitement leads to, ‘Okay, how am I going to do it?’. The success stories are when they can tap into a travel advisor. That’s a success story. It is, as Royal Caribbean’s Vicky Freed said this week, you’re not selling travel; you are advising. The sale is a byproduct of the advice. And that’s what’s happening.
Recommend magazine: How is AI changing what consumers [find online], and why does that make advisors even more essential?
Tolkin: I think [advisors] are more important right now because of the unfiltered returns that people are getting from the latest in technology. Trust me, though, this will evolve.
Recommend magazine: Speaking of AI, what do you tell advisors who are still hesitant or intimidated by these tools?
Tolkin: I go back to 30 years ago, to the mid-1990s, when the Internet really started to take off. If you look back and read through the newspapers and look at what was going to happen to service industries back when the Internet took over, the fear—it was incredible.
Well, the unemployment rate in the U.S. in the last 30 years is significantly lower than the prior 30 years. I can’t tell you how this is going to evolve, but history is a guide.
If the cruise lines and the other suppliers did not believe that the travel advisor was important for their future, they wouldn’t be investing heavily in conferences like this. I think this is not only Brad Tolkin speaking because it’s self-serving—because I’m deeply embedded in the travel advisor community—these are suppliers who don’t have to be deeply embedded if they believed there is this seismic moment that’s going to take place where travel advisors are not going to be important.
Recommend magazine: When we were in the middle of COVID, could you have imagined the industry would be this healthy five years later?
Tolkin: I knew it would be strong because leisure travel is just too desirous for the consumer; people want to travel. But did I think the snapback was going to be this great? No, to be honest. But I knew the industry was going to be healthy again; I just didn’t know when or how fast. The snapback definitely was greater than I predicted, and I think, than most people predicted.
Recommend magazine: If you had one word to describe travelers’ habits in 2025 and another for the 2026 outlook, what would they be?
Tolkin: So, 2025, it’s not one word, but, you know, it cemented that leisure travel—the mindset—has changed. It’s just really cemented in my mind that this is an incredible industry, that we’ve had a mindset change for the consumer.
And 2026 looks very promising right now. I mean, there’s been a lot of turmoil this year—we’ve got a new president, there’s been geopolitical events that have been seismic—and it’s just unbelievable how this industry is thriving despite that noise.
Recommend magazine: Why are cruises such a particularly strong product for advisors to sell?
Tolkin: While the consumer is resilient, as I said before, I don’t think their pocketbook has expanded. So, cruise is the best value in travel. That’s the reason. Cruising, whether you’re going on a luxury cruise or going on a contemporary cruise, it’s the best value.
And I think that’s why it’s important to travel advisors, because it’s a great product. The product has just gotten more spectacular. We have spectacular physical product on the short-stay market, which is bringing new-to-cruise—three to four nights. [Cruise lines are] leaning into these private island experiences. And those private island experiences are very well received by the consumer. They love them.
