The spirit of collaboration drove two travel advisors to create a new space, open to all independent contractors, to work, and to buy a suitcase.
The Travel Studio is located in Mountain brook, Alabama. Anne and Ragan Stone of Ragan Stone Travel came up with the idea of a storefront that houses workspace for travel advisors and a store with luxury travel-related items.
We wanted a place that we could all come and be able to talk and collaborate together.
The Austin, Texas-based host agency Departure Lounge has affiliates such as Stone and Liles. The Travel Studio was created by its founder and director, Keith Waldon.
Stone said that they had planned on renting office space. Waldon told them to make sure they had a storefront that was visible to the community.
Stone said that they were only focused on office space.
When they found the bigger space they are in, the advisors started considering retail and realized that this could be a spot for more than just the two of us and really create a little bit more of a community among the other ICs here in town.
The Travel Studio is located in a building that used to be a restaurant. Stone said that there are a bar next door and a coffee shop and bakery up the street.
The front of the space is dedicated to retail and has luxury travel products. sunscreen is one of the more practical items that the Travel Studio has.
The back of the store is where the collaboration happens. It has open-layout workspace for travel advisors who pay to lease the space, as with other workspace models, and a conference room for meetings. The retail end of the operation is managed by Stone and Liles.
The Travel Studio can be leased by any travel advisor regardless of affiliation. Stone said that the workspace is currently home to an affiliate of SmartFlyer and an advisor with Internova Travel Group.
Stone said that pre-pandemic would not have been an option. Everything is different now in a good way.
Most of the ICs working at the Travel Studio have a book of business. Potential clients can choose to work with any of the advisors in the space.
There are events that are key to the Travel Studio. Travel suppliers like hotels have expressed interest in holding in-person events in the space, as have some of the brands behind the products they carry.
A DMC from Africa wants to visit in the fall. The advisors would pair that with a designer.
Stone said that it allows people to have a little bit more of an accessible way to interact with travel.
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