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ACTA 2026 Leisure Travel Advisor Award | Dean Nelson
Why the future of travel is still human
Reflections from ACTA’s 2026 Eastern Canada Travel Industry Summit, and a very meaningful honour
I went to Toronto to learn, listen, reconnect and ask better questions.
I came home carrying something I certainly wasn’t expecting: ACTA’s 2026 Leisure Travel Advisor Award.
That made an already memorable day rather extraordinary.
On September 9, more than 500 travel professionals gathered at the ACTA Eastern Canada Travel Industry Summit in Brampton, Ontario. The final count was 504 attendees, including 212 suppliers, with a record 126 exhibitor booths. It was a full day of education, conversations, new ideas and reconnecting with the people behind the journeys my clients take around the world.
For me, attending conferences like ACTA is much more than an industry obligation or a chance to collect another business card.
Travel changes constantly.
New destinations emerge. Airlines change routes. Ships launch. Hotels open and renovate. Political situations shift. Climate and weather affect where and when we should travel. Technology is changing how people research trips. And traveller expectations continue to evolve.
If I expect my clients to trust me with their time, money and, quite often, a trip they have dreamed about for years, I have a responsibility to keep learning.
In the age of AI, human intelligence matters even more
Artificial intelligence was threaded through many of the conversations at this year’s Summit.
There is no question that AI is changing how travellers discover destinations and begin planning trips. It is also changing how those of us in the travel industry work.
ACTA President Suzanne Acton-Gervais encouraged advisors to learn about AI, experiment with it and use it responsibly. But she made an important distinction between accessing information and applying judgement.
Her message was wonderfully simple: “The future of travel is human.”
That resonated with me.
Technology can gather thousands of hotel options in seconds. It can suggest an itinerary through Japan, compare cruise ships or tell you the average temperature in Botswana in December.
But information is only the beginning.
A travel advisor needs to understand you.
Are you comfortable walking two kilometres or ten? Does a hotel being close to nightlife matter, or would you rather retreat somewhere quiet at the end of the evening? Are you travelling as an LGBTQ+ couple somewhere where local laws or social attitudes require additional consideration? Do you love expedition travel, or does the thought of climbing into a Zodiac make you reach immediately for the nearest cocktail?
And when a flight is cancelled, a wildfire changes an itinerary or someone becomes ill abroad, information alone is rarely enough. Someone needs to interpret what is happening, know whom to call, understand the options and advocate for the traveller.
That is where experience and relationships become enormously valuable.
It is also one reason I remain proud of my Certified Travel Counsellor (CTC) designation. ACTA encourages CTC and CTM professionals to complete continuing education every year, reinforcing that certification is something we maintain through ongoing learning rather than simply a set of letters earned once and forgotten.
Can responsible travel and business success coexist?
One of the day’s most interesting presentations came from James Thornton, CEO of Intrepid Travel, who spoke about innovation, diversity and inclusion and shared the story of how Intrepid evolved from two friends travelling across Africa into one of the world’s largest adventure travel companies.
What particularly interested me was the relationship between purpose and profitability.
Intrepid has been a certified B Corporation since 2018 and has continued to strengthen its B Corp performance through subsequent assessments. Its model puts considerable emphasis on locally led experiences, local suppliers and keeping more of tourism’s economic benefit within the communities travellers visit.
And it is growing.
Intrepid has set a goal of more than $1.3 billion in annual revenue by 2030 while committing to contribute 1% of revenue to purpose initiatives. Through the Intrepid Foundation, more than $20 million has been raised over its history, and in 2025 alone the Foundation disbursed $3.4 million to communities around the world.
That is significant because responsible tourism is sometimes treated as though travellers must choose between a great holiday and travelling thoughtfully.
They shouldn’t have to.
Where we stay, whom we hire, which experiences we purchase and how tourism dollars move through a community all matter.
Increasingly, I find myself asking more questions about those things when researching travel for my clients. Who owns the lodge? Who guides the experience? How are local communities involved? Are wildlife encounters managed responsibly? What happens to a destination when enormous numbers of visitors descend upon it?
Travel should bring something positive to the places that welcome us.
Looking beyond the places everybody already knows
Another session explored emerging destinations and the places travellers may be asking about next.
Led by tourism industry professionals and destination experts, the discussion was a useful reminder that part of my work is looking beyond this year’s Instagram darling.
Sometimes the most interesting opportunity is a destination that has quietly improved its tourism infrastructure, gained new air service or developed compelling locally led experiences without yet attracting overwhelming visitor numbers.
For a travel advisor, that means constantly keeping one eye on what clients are asking for today and another on what might suit them three, five or even ten years from now.
That research is one of my favourite parts of this job.
And then there is expedition travel...
One of my favourite conversations of the Summit was the panel on connecting travellers with extraordinary experiences, which included Cara Matthew, Regional Sales Director for Canada with National Geographic Expeditions.
The advisors discussing expedition travel had something rather amusing in common: many had stumbled into expedition travel almost accidentally.
Then they experienced it.
And they were hooked.
I understood completely.
Despite my rather complicated relationship with cold weather, my first expedition to Antarctica remains my number-one travel experience.
There is something difficult to describe about standing in a polar landscape surrounded by ice, wildlife and an almost impossible amount of space.
You suddenly feel very small.
And strangely grateful.
Adventure travel has run through much of my own travelling life, whether exploring on safari in Africa, travelling along Amazonian waterways in Peru, discovering the Galápagos or venturing into the Antarctic and northern polar regions.
Expedition travel adds another layer because you are often travelling alongside naturalists, scientists, researchers, photographers and expedition leaders who help you understand what you are seeing.
National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions, for example, builds its voyages around small expedition ships, active exploration and teams that can include scientists, photographers and cultural specialists. Lindblad traces its Antarctic expedition history to the first civilian expedition it led there in 1966.
That learning changes the journey.
A penguin colony becomes an ecosystem. A glacier becomes a record of climate. A seemingly empty stretch of ocean suddenly teems with connections you would never have noticed on your own.
There is an old expression about not knowing what you don’t know.
Travel has repeatedly taught me exactly that.
I also wish more people understood that adventure and expedition travel are far more accessible than they may imagine. It does not necessarily mean sleeping in a tent, scaling a mountain or abandoning creature comforts.
Some expedition ships today combine remarkable exploration with beautiful suites, excellent food, spas and highly personalised service.
I have met plenty of people who told me, “I’m not a cruiser,” only to discover that expedition travel bears little resemblance to the version of cruising they had pictured.
Sometimes you simply have to find the right ship and the right patch of planet.
The conversations behind your holiday
Then came the trade show.
For clients, a room filled with 212 travel suppliers might sound slightly overwhelming.
For me, it is one of the most useful parts of an event like this.
These are the people representing hotels, cruise lines, tour operators, destinations and experiences that eventually become part of the trips I design.
I get to ask what is changing.
What is opening?
What has been renovated?
Which new itineraries are coming?
Where are they seeing challenges?
Which experience is selling out months earlier than it used to?
And sometimes the conversation is simply, “Thank you.”
Because when something goes sideways during a trip, relationships matter.
The person I met across a trade-show table may eventually be the person helping me solve a problem for a client thousands of kilometres from home.
I take those partnerships seriously. I enjoy nurturing them. And after more than 25 years working in tourism, I still believe this business works best when people know one another, trust one another and pick up the telephone when help is needed.
The handshake, the glasses and the backpack
The final keynote of the day, Leadership in Action, came from Gloria Di Francesco, CEO and founder of GDF Talent.
Her presentation gave me something unexpected: a chance to reflect.
She used three simple objects to think about leadership: a handshake, a pair of glasses and a backpack.
The handshake represented emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills.
Those qualities matter enormously in travel.
Our work involves people at their happiest, most excited and occasionally most stressed. Good leadership, like good travel advising, requires understanding what someone needs before reacting.
Then came the glasses.
One lens represented judgement and beliefs. The other represented the stories and assumptions we create in our own minds.
That landed particularly strongly for me.
We all make assumptions about people, destinations and even ourselves. Sometimes those assumptions protect us. Sometimes they quietly limit what we believe is possible.
Gloria said something that stayed with me:
“What you believe to be true about people will determine how you interact with them.”
It reminded me of my colleague Darci Murray talking on our Travel Because You Can podcast about the doubts and assumptions she faced while building HOOKED, her alcohol-free, full-sensory travel company.
Sometimes leadership means examining the story playing in your own head before deciding it is true.
Finally came the backpack.
We all carry things around: a pebble from an annoying conversation, a brick from a mistake or perhaps an entire boulder from something we have never properly dealt with.
The lesson was to acknowledge what we carry, have the difficult conversations with empathy and without judgement, learn from them and know when it is time to put the weight down.
There was something wonderfully appropriate about hearing that lesson at a travel conference.
Travel lighter.
An honour I will treasure
And then came the final surprise.
During the ACTA Awards, I was deeply honoured to hear my name called as the recipient of the 2026 Leisure Travel Advisor Award.
ACTA describes the award as recognising an advisor whose expertise, innovation and commitment to client service represents excellence within our profession.
To know that my peers nominated me makes it particularly meaningful.
Travel has given me an extraordinary career. It has allowed me to visit places I once only saw on maps, build lifelong friendships, advocate for safer and more inclusive travel, work with remarkable tourism partners and help clients experience moments they may remember for the rest of their lives.
I have also watched our profession change enormously.
Through all of that change, ACTA has been there representing Canadian travel agencies and advisors through its four pillars: Advocate, Educate and Elevate, Promote, and Connect.
I am proud to be a Certified Travel Counsellor and proud to belong to a profession that continues to evolve.
But I also see this award less as a finish line than a responsibility.
It reminds me to stay curious.
To keep travelling.
To continue asking uncomfortable questions.
To listen to people whose experiences differ from my own.
To nurture the partnerships that help me look after my clients.
And to remember that regardless of how sophisticated our technology becomes, travel remains deeply human.
It is about curiosity, trust, connection and the extraordinary privilege of stepping into somebody else’s corner of the world for a little while.
So, to my colleagues who nominated me, to ACTA, to Personal Travel Management, to my travel partners around the world, and especially to the clients who trust me with their journeys:
Thank you.
Receiving ACTA’s 2026 Leisure Travel Advisor Award means more to me than I can adequately put into words.
And perhaps the best way I can honour it is simply to keep learning, keep travelling and keep doing the work.
There is still an enormous world out there to discover.
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departuresXdean - an independent agent with Personal Travel Mgmt CPBC #2806, TICO #50025786 proud members of the IGLTA and the Ensemble Travel Group.
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