By Daniel Okafor

The two consortia opened their Travel Market conference in San Antonio with a $170 million tally: $79 million in preferred-supplier volume from five new U.S. agencies joining TRAVELSAVERS, plus $91 million from 36 new NEST agencies.

The networks' combined roster now reads 2,000-plus TRAVELSAVERS agencies and 504 NEST members. Kathryn Mazza-Burney, who runs both, framed the year's intake as anything but open enrollment.

What does selectivity look like at TRAVELSAVERS and NEST?

"We don't open the network to everyone," Mazza-Burney, CEO of TRAVELSAVERS and President of NEST, told the conference. "We're looking for those who are looking to be engaged within the network, those who are going to take advantage of what we're bringing to the table—on the marketing side, on the technology side, on the service side. We're very high touch."

NEST applicants, she added, must already be running at least $500,000 in preferred business. The minimum exists to keep hobbyists out of the directory.

How are 2026 sales running across the networks?

Strongly, and fastest where the dollar stretches furthest. FIT (independent-travel, typically air-and-hotel) land sales are running 7 percent ahead of last year, guided sales 8 percent, cruise and river cruise each 14 percent, and hotel room nights 8 percent.

Luxury is doing the heavier lifting. Same categories, affluent segment: FIT up 31 percent, cruise up 31 percent, guided up 16 percent, river cruise up 35 percent, hotel up 44 percent.

The math is roughly this: each new TRAVELSAVERS agency brought in around $15.8 million in preferred volume, versus about $2.5 million per new NEST agency. Both land above the networks' stated floors.

What does the advisor survey say about the rest of the year?

Roughly two-thirds of TRAVELSAVERS and NEST advisors polled in August expect their sales to climb versus last year, Betsy Goldberg, the networks' Senior Corporate Communications Director, told the conference.

Shoulder season—the spring and autumn weeks hotels used to discount—is splitting into camps. Four in 10 advisors expect shoulder business to rise; 23 percent expect it to fall; 10 percent told Goldberg there is no shoulder season anymore.

The booking window bends at both ends. Thirty-eight percent cited six-to-twelve months out as the most common lead time, with "anecdotal reports from people who took the survey that some clients are booking for 2028 already," Goldberg noted. Forty percent see more last-minute bookings; 22 percent see clients extending further ahead.

On spend, 32 percent say clients are more willing to spend generally, 12 percent specifically on premium, and 21 percent are hunting harder value—booking cheaper destinations, taking shoulder weeks, flexing dates.

Who took home the Travel Market awards?

Celebrity Cruises, Amawaterways, Hyatt, Destination Puerto Rico, Delta Air Lines, Collette, and Abercrombie & Kent Global DMCs took partner-of-the-year honours across their categories.

The gala's first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award went to Pat Cinfici, a 52-year industry veteran with 22 of those at TRAVELSAVERS, who now oversees 14 agency locations across several states. Mazza-Burney told attendees Cinfici "couldn't be more deserving."

What does the generational handoff mean for distribution?

Chief Marketing Officer Nicole Mazza pointed to a projected $84 trillion wealth transfer from Baby Boomers to younger generations. That next-tier customer, she said, judges trips on an "emotional calculator," not a spreadsheet.

"AI does not convey confidence—that's where you come in," Mazza told the room. "It's not [about] choosing between innovation and human connection but embracing both of them."

For newer NEST members, the message has already landed. "More doors have been opened to me in these last two months than with my previous consortium, even being among the top 20 producers," said Michelle Gammond, owner of Travel Potions.

If Travel Market's preferred-supplier lines hold for the rest of 2026, both networks will have rewritten the membership math—and quietly reset what counts as a serious book of business for a home-based advisor.