Monday Minute: Vision Travel's Deanna Sutherland-Rigby

The 'Monday Minute' is a weekly feature at PAX dedicated to highlighting the movers, shakers, leaders and rule-breakers in Canada's travel agent community. Wanna be profiled? Wanna nominate someone? Email newsroom@paxglobalmedia.com!

Name: Deanna Sutherland-Rigby

Company: Vision Travel Solutions

Location: St. Catharines, ON

Years of travel agent experience: 7

Speciality: Cruises, family travel and customized vacations

What do you love most about being a travel agent? Working together with my amazing clients to help create memorable vacations that will last a lifetime.

What's one travel trend you've noticed as of late? My clients want to spend more time in the places they go to visit; they want to slow down and take in the culture and have those enjoyable human connections, instead of trying to "see it all" in a short amount of time! They want to experience smaller villages, sit in a local café sipping coffee and watching the locals go about their day, they want to go off the beaten path versus sticking to the main touristy areas.

Over the years, how have you had to adapt to changes taking place in the industry? I take the time to educate myself on new processes and offer my clients new innovative ways to keep track of their itineraries and documents while travelling.

Of all the bookings you’ve made, which itinerary and/or travel package are you most proud of? I am proud of any new type of trip that I put together for my clients - learning and growing as an agent always gives me that "proud moment" feeling. I am particularly proud of a recent trip that I worked on, in which I put together a once-in-a-lifetime customized gorilla trekking trip in Uganda - what a unique and surreal experience!

What's your number one piece of advice to other travel agents? Team up with an advisor that has been around a lot longer than you have and take from their experiences.