The owner of Jamison Travel, Michelle Everson, chats to Travel Weekly, about buying a travel business at 23 and what luxury means for her. 

You were early into your career when you became the founder of Jamison Travel. What did you think the travel industry was missing at the time?

Me !… no just kidding. I had worked in travel from when I left College at 18- working for two travel agencies and two airlines. So when I bought Jamison Travel at 23, I wasn’t necessarily looking to change the industry from the traveller’s point of view – but I definitely wanted to create a more fun work environment for myself and my employees, which I believe then translated into a better customer service experience for our clients.

What do you consider to be the biggest risks and opportunities in travel right now?

By far the biggest risk is staying relevant and being able to bring value to the customer experience. The industry lost many experienced and well-trained consultants during and after Covid – so there is great opportunity for those that stayed to grow our customer base and shine. Having said that – it’s essential that we train “new to industry” staff. I have been saying for many years we need to encourage and attract young people into our industry for it to survive. Moreover, it’s important we have in place proper training opportunities and that we renumerate our staff appropriately. In regards to opportunities, the travel demand, in particular luxury travel, has not waned and we have never had so many great tools at hand to help us promote, interact and sell to our customers.

As a business owner in travel, how are you seeing AI?

I am in two minds about AI-but that doesn’t matter because bottom line it’s here- and it’s here to stay – it’s about how do I best use it- or better still how do my team use it – because lets face it sometimes it’s best to let the young’uns loose with the technology .Mind you, I actually used it recently to write an ad for an admin position I advertised. AI wrote the ad in less than 10 seconds- amazing. Maybe I should have used AI to answer your questions 😊.

What does luxury mean to you?

When I think of luxury my mind takes me to Southern Africa and some of the amazing lodges I have been lucky enough to stay in.