Most franchises give you a training manual and a Zoom call. But not us, we actually take you places. And we’ve just returned from our latest Elite Experience in Mauritius.
Every year we take a group of our consultants somewhere in the world for what we call the Elite Experience. Japan, Jamaica, the Caribbean, Mexico. This time it was Mauritius, three stunning Beachcomber properties, a week of business coaching from co-founder Steve Witt, and thirty consultants who landed back home last night already itching to put everything into practice.
This is what that week looked like.
What the Elite Experience actually is
The Elite Experience is one of two fully funded overseas retreats included as standard in the Elite package. It is for consultants who are between six months and two years into their journey, the point where the initial excitement has settled, the business is building, and the question shifts from how do I get started to how do I take this as far as it can go.
It is not a reward for top performers. It is not something you have to earn your way into. It is simply part of what the Elite package includes, because we believe the best way to develop brilliant travel consultants is to put them in the destinations their clients dream about, surround them with the people who have already built what they are trying to build, and give them the space to think bigger than they normally would.
The island that needs no introduction
Mauritius is hard to do justice to in words. The ocean is the kind of turquoise that looks like it has been edited. The Beachcomber resorts across the island are each completely different in character and all of them are exceptional. By the end of the week the debate over which one was the favourite had become something of a theme.
For Elaine, who hired a car and drove herself around the island just to see as much as possible, the real value of being there was something no amount of research could replicate.
“There’s nothing better than actually having the experience,” she says. “You can read facts. You can research online. But actually being here and being immersive, and having the opportunity to think about which of my clients would suit each property, has been invaluable.”
Greg visited eight Beachcomber properties across the week and came to a conclusion that only someone who had seen them all could reach.
“They are all different. They all have their own character. And it’s helped me work out which one might best suit the customers.”
That is the whole point. Every hotel visit, every conversation with the Beachcomber team, every meal and every morning run along the beach goes straight back into the business. The consultants who come back from these trips do not just know more about Mauritius on paper. They have been there. Clients can hear that in a conversation and it makes all the difference.
The classroom with the best view in the world
Between the resort visits, the cookery lessons and the beach time, the group spent serious time in the classroom. Nine until four on most days, as Greg cheerfully pointed out. Business planning, goal setting, time management, social media strategy, and the kind of coaching that shifts how people think about what they are building and what is actually possible.
Mikaela is eighteen months into her travel business. She came to Mauritius with a solid foundation already in place and left with something sharper and more specific.
“Just put things in place, stick by them, stick with your Business Consultants. They’ll teach you lots of stuff going forwards. Just take it through and make it big.”
Elaine found the coaching more practical than she expected.
“Running your own business for me is a steep learning curve. But the practical hints, tips, tools and frameworks to think in reality about what it’s going to take, I couldn’t have asked for more.”
Greg was direct about what he was taking home. “I’ve got to add more detail and structure to what I do. I’m going to go back and put a plan together. Steve suggested we set a target of ten times what we think we can achieve. If I only hit fifty percent of that, it’s still more than I’d have planned myself.”
For Sarita it was simpler than all of that.
“The sky is the limit. Honestly, push yourself as far as you can. Anything is possible.”
What happens when thirty consultants are in the same room
One of the things co-founder Steve Witt talks about consistently is the value of peer learning on these trips. The coaching and training matter enormously. But so does the room.
Thirty consultants at various stages of their journey, from different backgrounds, with different strengths and different experiences, all facing broadly the same challenges. The conversations that happen over dinner, by the pool, on the way back from a hotel tour, are often where the most useful insights land.
Mikaela described it in a way that captured what makes the Elite Experience community something you cannot replicate in a webinar or a training session.
“You speak to all the other TCs on your journey. We’re all on the same journey. You pick at each other’s brains, they tell you what they’ve done well with, what they’ve not done so well with. It doesn’t always work or not work for every person. You just take lots of information from everybody. It’s lovely being surrounded by so many people that are all facing the same challenges.”
What they are doing differently when they get home
The end of an Elite Experience is easy to spot. The energy in the room changes. People are already mentally back in their businesses, running through the things they are going to do differently, the calls they are going to make, the plans they are going to write.
Greg had a client message arrive before he had even left the island, a family staying at one of the Beachcomber resorts the following month who had already sent a list of things they needed him to investigate. He was on it immediately.
Elaine had a clear priority. “Work on my business plan. Set some really challenging goals for myself with an achievable plan so that I can beat my goals.”
Sarita was going home to tell everyone she knew about Mauritius. Not just the island but the whole experience. “The locals, not just the staff. Just the amazingness of it all.”
And Mikaela was going home to make it big, with a clearer picture than ever of exactly what that meant and how to get there.
What they would say to anyone still considering joining
Every consultant Steve spoke to on the final day was asked the same question. For anyone at home wondering whether to start a travel business with The Travel Franchise, what would you tell them?
The answers were different people in different words saying the same thing.
Sarita: “If you don’t try, you’re never gonna know. I genuinely didn’t think that this would be a career that I would enjoy this much. When I realised there’s an opportunity to make a business and a career from something that I love, it was honestly a no brainer.”
Greg: “You can do it. Plain and simple. There’s a great team of people at Not Just Travel. They are prepared to share the information with you. If you do what they say, replicate it, you can do it.”
Elaine: “Go for it. Go where the energy is.”
The Elite Experience does not create successful travel consultants. The work that happens day to day, the calls, the bookings, the client relationships, that is what builds the business. What the Elite Experience does is make people believe, more deeply and more concretely than any amount of training at home ever could, in exactly how far that work can take them.
A week in Mauritius. Seven hotels. Thirty consultants. And every single one of them going home with a plan, a purpose and the kind of energy that tends to produce results.
