The Rise of the Gen Z Travel Advisor: “There Are No Rules Now”

When Chicago-based Karina Kavanagh started as a travel advisor in early 2025, she had a problem. Three years at a major luxury tour operator meant she knew the industry inside out. Regardless, it was still like starting from scratch.

“I had absolutely zero clients,” said the 26-year-old founder of travel agency Seven.

Enter TikTok, where she began posting 90-second videos with honest reviews of luxury properties. While the internet is awash with travel influencers, Kavanagh found a gap when it came to content that wasn’t glorified advertisement.

“I’m always cautious to give my real opinion on a property,” she said. “I hear two things almost every day: ‘I didn’t even know working with a TA was still an option,’ and ‘I didn’t realize that there were any TAs who were my age, and understand the vibe that I’m looking for.’”

She posted daily for the first few months, focusing on educational content that would get saved and shared. Within eight months, she had 10,000 followers.

For this next generation of travel advisors — the much-analyzed Gen Z, the oldest of whom are turning 30 next year — the challenges are real. They’ve inherited the threat of artificial intelligence and a world marred by COVID and geopolitical risk. But the opportunities are considerable. Well-heeled travelers are prioritizing experiences and will pay through the nose, and cashed-up boomers are retiring in droves, funneling it into multi-generational trips of a lifetime. The DIY era of travel booking is fading, with travel advisors back in favor. And social media provides a platform for unfettered marketing and business development.

“There are no rules now,” said Rob Karp, who turns 29 later this year and founded his luxury travel company MilesAhead as a miles-and-points service in 2012, while still at school in Westchester, New York. “It’s not like someone gave me a course on how to be a travel advisor, so I’m always thinking: How can we be pushing the norms if the norm doesn’t work for us?” 

Karp formed the company just shy of his 15th birthday, after realizing his knack for maximizing points and miles for his parents and their friends was a lucrative skill. Over the last six months he has narrowed his focus to high- and ultra-high-net-worth families who spend a minimum of $250,000 a year on travel. He has taken on no new clients in eight months and cut his headcount from 18 to nine. Most importantly, he has raised his fee from 4 percent to 6 percent of total trip cost and stepped back from being available “around the clock,” working instead on close partners on the ground and a 24-hour number for true emergencies.

“The endless noise of the internet has left travelers feeling overwhelmed and craving real guidance,” he said.

Lazy — or a Secret Weapon?

Gen Z’s reputation for norm-pushing hasn’t always won admirers. Critics call them social media obsessed, checked out, and unwilling to put in the hard yards.

“I’ve said, very clearly, ‘I don’t want to hear about burnout and personal days in August.’ I’m telling them, ‘You work in travel and this is the busiest part of the year,’” said Sarah Ives, who runs Sarah Ives Luxury Travel out of London and has two women in their 20s on staff. “We’ve set boundaries … but I always remember, I had a hard time being managed by boomers.”

But Ives is quick to point out how valuable the generation is. 

“They just have so much going for them; tech abilities, their research using social media — they are like the original ChatGPT, they pull from everywhere: TikTok, Reddit, Snapchat,” she said. “We’re joking about starting an OnlyFans account modeling hotel slippers.”

Crucially, they are tapped into shifting travel tastes, as Gen Zers earn proper adult money and increasingly call the shots on where family capital is allocated. For big family trips, Ives says her staff will field the request and then work with the family’s Gen Z members to build a trip that suits everyone. 

“They are very into aesthetics, but it’s not just about the facade of things, they want to be experiencing and influencing culture,” she said.

So, forget about buffets, big-box hotel chains, and swim-up bars, many Gen Z advisors told me, though they remain very into luxury. 

“Travel isn’t just what I sell, it’s something I genuinely prioritize in my own life,” said Victoria Lawrence, a 28-year-old advisor at Embark Beyond, who uses social media less to sell than to show clients her approach aligns with theirs.

The Attention Economy

The Gen Zers interviewed for this story were, surprisingly, not all gung-ho on social media. Some avoid posting on platforms like TikTok altogether, focusing instead on a specialist knowledge area.

“Once a once-undiscovered place has been posted, it is no longer really undiscovered, and runs the risk of mass tourism taking over,” said 27-year-old Lili LeBaron, a senior Asia travel specialist at Scott Dunn. Part of her role now, she added, is helping guests sort through what they have already seen online.

Her colleague Grace Bunker, a 26-year-old Europe specialist, said so many “hidden gems” have gone viral that the value now lies in private guides and local experts: “The real difference is not just where our guests go, but how they experience a destination.”

Still, the socials are inarguably a way to make a splash. Just ask Olivia Ferney, the 24-year-old Canadian marketing director and travel specialist at Top Tier Travel, better known as @travelwithlivii to her million-plus Instagram followers, who broadcasts her clients’ outlandish demands — from securing the world’s largest croissant to telling billionaires’ children they’ll be flying — gasp — commercial while the PJ is out of action.

Kavanagh has built her entire business on TikTok, where she now has 25,000 followers and has recently hired two independent contractors to help with her client load. A video laying out the top five luxury resorts in St. Lucia — with notes on who they’re for and who should skip them — beats a room tour, which she dismisses as “what I see far too much from other travel advisors online.”

It is an art form, she said, and a lot of work — 20 to 30 hours a week in the “growth phase,” and as much as 20 now.

“Once clients realize they’re not just being sold to, and instead we’re working together to find them the best option, they open up and we develop much deeper, more lasting relationships,” she said.

Younger advisors are also benefiting from a fresh audience that sees their value, many told me. Where boomers remain caught up in the heady early days of internet booking, younger travelers consider an advisor worth the cost — a renaissance Karp intends to capitalize on. The real money maker, he said, is a sustainable business where staff won’t burn out, built on complex, multi-generational itineraries and event-style trips rather than a vast quantity of cheaper ones.

“Our generation already treats travel as non-negotiable, and with the luxury travel market expanding toward a projected $3 trillion by 2033, there is concrete demand for highly customized, meaningful trips,” he said. “Gen Z is uniquely positioned to bridge this gap … People want to be taken care of, and that level of personal care is something an algorithm simply cannot replicate.”

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