Shoptalk: Why travel advisors burn out — and how to stop it

Sarah Boville didn't see her burnout coming until it arrived. 

The Grimsby, ON-based travel advisor and owner of Barefoot Travel Inc. says she hit her breaking point during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she had 14 weddings to replan in a single April-May stretch. 

"My patience was gone," she says. "I used to be 24/7, but you don't get a break. I didn't get a holiday for years."

It's a story Beverly Beuermann-King, a workplace mental health and resiliency expert at R 'n' B Consulting, hears often from travel advisors.

The problem, says Beuermann-King, isn't the busy seasons. It's the inability to step back from them. 

"Our own internal expectations, the industry expectations, our clients' expectations— all of these things go together," she says. “People love this industry at first, but because they're always on, they never get that break, and that's what takes that toll." 

The toll is real, but so are the solutions.

Recognizing the warning signs

Beuermann-King describes burnout as the point when the work starts to suck the joy from your life. 

"It's when you can't settle; when you can't not feel guilty; when your mind will not shut off; when you're with your family and you can't be there emotionally because you're too busy thinking about work," she says. 

"Those are all of the signs of burnout."

There's also a cultural piece that makes it harder to catch. The travel industry has a tendency to wear exhaustion like a badge of honour. 

Saying "I haven't even had time to get out of my chair today" gets treated as proof of hustle. 

"We need to not glamourize overwork," says Beuermann-King. “It’s really a reflection of how poorly we are taking care of ourselves.”

She's also clear that burnout isn't a personal failing. 

"It's not that you can't handle your job," she says. "It's not that you're not cut out for it. It's just that you are putting out more energy than you're putting in." 

The fix, she says, starts with honesty about what's actually sustainable. 

"You can't realistically be on 24 hours a day, seven days a week without burning out," she says. "The key is figuring out what you can say no to and what you can say yes to, and realizing that each one of those has a cost."  

Building boundaries 

"Brick and mortars aren't open at 9:30 at night, so why should I be available?" she says. 

"I'm a professional, and most professionals aren't going to be answering emails and phone calls at 10 at night. They have set boundaries and hours. So why in our industry should we be expected to be available 24/7?" 

The result, she says, wasn't fewer clients. It was better ones.

"By sticking to your hours, I believe your clientele changes," she says. "They respect you."

Boville also implemented fees for consultations, which she says has filtered out price-shoppers and protected the hours she'd been spending on detailed recommendations for prospects who then booked elsewhere.

Beuermann-King echoes the boundary-setting advice from a mental health angle. She recommends being explicit with clients about when and why they can reach you. 

"If we can set those expectations, then you're going to have fewer of those non-emergency calls, which is going to free up your time,” she says.  

She also advocates for building what she calls white space into the calendar: deliberate breathing room between meetings, time to get up from your desk, and take a proper break. 

"Make a meeting for your lunch. Put it in your calendar and take that time,” she says. 

Rebalancing the equation

At its core, burnout is an energy equation. You're consistently putting out more than you're taking in, and the deficit compounds over time. 

Beuermann-King's advice is to rebalance that intentionally and to start small. 

"It's about connecting to family and friends," she says. "It's about having something in your life that you do for fun." 

She also encourages advisors to recognize that not every day will look the same. 

"Each day is going to be different, and there are going to be some days that are going to be absolutely exhausting," she says. "If you have one of those days, it's okay to take the next day to be a little bit kinder to yourself."

Beuermann-King suggests asking yourself three questions regularly: What renews me? What makes me happy? What drains my energy? 

The answers will be different for everyone, but the habit of asking keeps you honest about whether something needs to change.

Busy seasons are inevitable, but burning out doesn't have to be.

Don't miss a single travel story: subscribe to PAX today!  Click here to follow PAX on Facebook.