We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ashley & Brian Guastella a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ashley & Brian, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to start by getting your thoughts on what you are seeing as some the biggest trends emerging in your industry

When we first started this business, we expected that a majority of our clientele would stem from people who didn’t know how to travel, or had trouble putting the whole picture together. We were wrong. Most of our clients utilize our services because they are leading very busy lives and have trouble finding the time to devote to the trip planning process. Our clients rely on us to get to know them and what they’re looking for, do the research, and present a few options to select from in an effort to block out the “noise”.

With so much information accessible at the ready, the industry is evolving from providing booking expertise to pivoting to more of a luxury service model. Instead of booking a cruise via an agent-only portal, our clients need our opinion of which cruise to take to have the best family scuba diving adventure. This offers the opportunity for itinerary planners to move past the transactional nature of the relationship and develop a deeper relationship with trust and camaraderie. It is an opportunity that not only enriches the client-planner relationship, but for us, gives us a sense of fulfillment to contribute meaningfully to such an important moment in our client’s lives.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Every Little Thing Custom Travel was founded by us, built from our love of travel and adventure. As working parents, our time is valuable, and we found ourselves creating detailed itineraries for our trips to ensure we maximized our time exploring new places. From traveling the past 30 years together, we have amazing stories and incredible pictures to share about the unique places we have gone and the special experiences we’ve had when visiting new locations. Upon request, we started planning travel for friends and family and thoroughly enjoyed seeing how much less stressful the vacation was for them, how much fun they had, and how much easier having someone else plan the itinerary made their time away.

Travel is subjective, and we have a talent for sensing what our clients are truly looking to experience. We commit to designing bespoke itineraries for all types of travelers; traditional tourists and people looking to blend in with the locals, families looking for adventure and couples looking for solitude.

I’m most proud of three things:
-Our ability to get a sense of the feel of the trips our clients are hoping to experience and then finding them options based on that sense. Fun fact: we offer an “out of the box” option for our clients who request suggestions of where to travel that we suggest based on their preferences and descriptions, and it’s selected more that it isn’t.
-How we take care of our clients. Travel is one of the things we’re most passionate about in our lives, and we work to ensure that our clients feel supported and prepared so they can enjoy their trip without worry.
-The amount of partnerships that we’ve cultivated. We have partners in every corner of the world that prioritize customer service to our standard and we trust them to take care of our clients. We’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to travel overseas to meet many of them, which is a benefit of this business that we’ll never take for granted.

We offer three itinerary planning package types:
-The Essentials Package: $195, creates the “skeleton” of the trip (airfare, lodging, transportation).
-The Insider Package: $395, creates the “skeleton” of the trip plus daily activities (formal tours and less formal options).
-The Experience Package: $95 per day planned, all our clients have to do it pack!

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

The best source of new clients for us are referrals from our existing clients. It means a lot to us that our clients let us participate in such an important and amazing experience in their lives. We’re very fortunate that our clients regularly recommend our services to their family and friends because we’ve earned their trust, and we don’t take that honor for granted.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

We started this business with the intention of it being a fun side project, and a way of sharing our love of travel planning with others. Within weeks, it became clear that ELT was going to be a much more prominent part of our lives. While growing the business, we focused on efficiency: creating forms, building databases, settling into individual roles, and streamlining processes. It took a significant amount of time investment at the front end, but that investment has paid dividends. We can now take on more clients than we ever thought possible as our processes provide such a strong foundation to the way we conduct business, and our clients appreciate the structure as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.everylittlethingcustomtravel.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everylittlethingcustomtravel/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/everylittlethingcustomtravel/
• Other: Alternative domain: https://www.eltcustomtravel.com
  Email: [email protected]