We were lucky to catch up with Kim Barber recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kim , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

Globetrotter Travel has grown significantly since I started it in early 2015. I hit the ground running early on by working hard to get my name out there in a number of ways including joining and attending as many local events and networking groups as I could, exhibiting at bridal shows, taking out an ad at our local theater, and of course, utilizing social media. Ultimately, I credit the relationship building and networking groups with the bulk of my growth over the years, but referrals from happy past customers has been a large source of growth for us as well. I find that a lot of marketing efforts are simply trial and error and with each year that passes, I have a bit more money that I can use to invest in different marketing opportunities that come my way.

There have certainly been plenty of obstacles along the way – Covid being the largest and most obvious one as travel came to a screeching halt in March of 2020, but we made it through on the other side, and actually gained quite a few new customers during this time as so many people had really poor customer service experiences dealing with the websites they had previously used to book their trips with.

The travel industry has changed significantly over the years and now, anyone with a laptop and an internet connection can call themselves a travel advisor, so our experience has really set us apart in a market that is oversaturated with travel advisors.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I got my Bachelor’s from Central Michigan University with a Tourism, Hospitality, and Events focused, but actually never saw myself working as a travel advisor. I thought I would work for a travel supplier or a cruise line, and I have had some offers over the years, but ultimately I discovered that I loved planning bucket list trips for people after working in the travel industry for a few years, and decided to launch Globetrotter Travel in early 2015 to continue to be able to plan these trips for people outside of my family and friends.

We plan trips to destinations all over the world and have planned trips to all seven continents, but we do have areas of travel that we specialize in as well. New Zealand and Australia are key destinations that we specialize in as I lived and worked in both countries within the travel industry, so I’m very familiar with these destinations that are close to my heart. In 2019, I was bitten by the travel bug all over again when I went on my first African safari in Kenya, and have been back on safari 7 times since then, so I’ve developed a more recent specialization in putting together safari trips for my clients as well. In addition to these destinations, I plan a lot of trips to Mexico and the Caribbean since everyone wants to escape from Michigan in the winter to warmer weather, and of course I also plan many other popular destinations including countries throughout Europe, Hawaii, South America, and Asia as well. I focus quite a bit on ocean and river cruising as this is a mode of travel I really enjoy, and just completed by 29th cruise last month.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I think any travel agency that not only survived Covid, but has managed to thrive afterwards, has demonstrated resilience and we are no exception. 2020 and 2021 were difficult years for almost everyone, we realize, but the travel industry was hit especially hard. Since our commissions aren’t paid out until travel has been completed, trips that we had spent 2018 and 2019 planning for 2020 were cancelled due to the pandemic, and we had to push those trips out to 2021 or 2022 (or beyond, in some cases). While most clients reach out to plan their trip around 15-12 months in advance of their trip and we get paid within a year and half or so when their trips have been completed, those trips that we started planning in 2018 that were postponed to 2022, had a much longer turnaround. In many cases, these trips were cancelled and rebooked at least once or twice, so we were doing two or three times the work we would have done had the trips gone as scheduled in 2020 and since everyone was in the same boat, the hold times for airlines and travel suppliers were lengthy – sometimes taking days to get through to a human to help with the rebooking. Ultimately, Covid was the most challenging period that I’ve worked in the travel industry but we made it through and are so grateful to all of our loyal clients who stuck with us through all the challenges of that time. We also gained so many new clients after Covid as well – so many people who had previously booked their own travel using online travel agencies had really horrible customer service experiences during the pandemic trying to get resolutions for their cancelled trips and they vowed to never book travel with an online travel agency again after those challenging times.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I think that really being present in the community at networking events, shows, meetings, etc. has played a big part in building our reputation within our market. It certainly didn’t happen overnight, but being consistent about attending these meetings in our first few years of business and building relationships with other local business owners and professionals has made a big difference in our growth over the years.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.myglobetrottertravel.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myglobetrottertravel/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/myglobetrottertravel
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberly-barber-1614a737/

Image Credits
Headshot taken by Sarrah Gani of The Portrait Lounge in Holt, Michigan.