Time’s Up for Traditional Travel Consultancy: What Needs to Change (Now)

Olly Nicholls
Jun 9, 2025
2 min read

Let’s not sugar-coat it.The travel consultancy sector is broken.

Bloated retainers. Death-by-PowerPoint. Buzzword bingo.Consultants selling yesterday’s playbook to tomorrow’s problems.

Meanwhile, the travel industry itself is sprinting forward — fuelled by AI, embedded commerce, loyalty revolutions, and a global demand for experiences over everything.

The gap between what travel businesses need and what consultancies deliver has never been wider.

And that’s a problem.

Where Traditional Consultancies Are Failing

❌ They’re too slow.

By the time your “strategic roadmap” is ready, your competitors have already launched, iterated, and scaled.

❌ They don’t understand operators.

Decks don’t solve distribution issues. Workshops don’t close partnership deals.We need consultants who build with us, not just present to us.

❌ They lack sector specificity.

Tour operators are not OTAs.Airlines are not attractions.The nuances matter. So does lived experience. And too many firms just don’t have it.

❌ They fear execution.

Real value lives in doing, not advising.But most consultancies stop at “recommendations” — scared of being held accountable to outcomes.

So What Needs to Change?

Here’s what the new wave of travel consultancy must deliver:

🔥 1. Sector-Specific Firepower

The future belongs to specialists. Travel and experiences businesses deserve advisors who’ve sat in their seat, navigated the storms, and built brands from the inside out. Not generalists who skim headlines and rinse-repeat frameworks.

🤝 2. Embedded, Flexible Models

The market needs more fractional leadership, project-based blitzes, and on-demand expertise.Not year-long retainers where value hides in status reports.

💻 3. Digital Fluency & Tech-First Thinking

The lines between travel, tech, ticketing, loyalty, and fintech are blurring fast.Consultants must be fluent in APIs, marketplaces, and digital distribution — or they’ll get left behind.

💡 4. Brand & Commercial Alignment

Brand is not fluff. It’s strategy.And strategy is useless unless it hits revenue.The best consultancies now understand how to link narrative, sales, and scale — across every touchpoint.

🚀 5. Speed, Accountability & Action

The modern client wants agility.Faster pilots. Sharper sprints. No waiting three months for a deck.They want partners who execute, iterate, and stick around to own the outcome.