Winner of the 2025 National Travel Industry Awards (NTIA) Most Outstanding Travel Agency Manager, Director of Sonia Jones Travel, Sonia Jones says being open to learn, adapting and innovating are key to success in the industry.
Sonia Jones, Director of Sonia Jones Travel, a business she started in 2014, says this award is particularly important to her because it was hard fought.
“We’re not your typical agency; we buy through another agency, and so we had to fight to be accepted to get ATIA accreditation. But last year, we came to a resolution, and for me, this accreditation was so important because it’s about consumer confidence.
“Post-COVID people would ask who you are owned by. Luxury travellers are spending a lot of money with you, and so having this accreditation means my customers know they can trust me.
“So winning this, well, I can’t put it into words how much it means to me because just having the accreditation alone is so important, and just over the last year, I’ve become a much better business owner because of ATIA’s advocacy, and the community, which I feel so connected to.”
An early introduction to travel
It is hardly surprising Jones ended up committing her career to travel – she grew up in a family where travel was frequent.
“My dad was a nomad, and travel was just a normal part of my life. I have been travelling since I was two years old, and my father used to quiz me about flags and capitals.
“After school, I took a gap year and travelled, and post my university degree, I went to Japan for a year and then travelled for another year, and everything was leading to a career in tourism.”
Twenty-three years ago, she started working for Flight Centre and in 2014 went out on her own.
“It was through Travel Associates that I learnt the art of consulting. There was time to learn to develop itineraries and dig deeper, and we didn’t have that at Flight Centre.
“Suddenly I thought, I want to do this myself, and so I joined MTA, and that was my official step into luxury, and I was like a kid in a candy store. I couldn’t believe there was so much luxury product out there.
“I was on the cusp of this secret world of rolling out the red carpet and I felt like I peeked behind the curtain and I wanted all of it. It elevated my sales, and that let me step into the luxury travel space and cemented where I wanted to work.”
The Virtuoso advisor has gone on to win multiple awards, including Queensland Tourism Awards gold winner and Australian Small Business Champion Awards winner.
The key to success, she says, is to ensure you are always relevant and prepared to adapt.
“That’s always been important to me, to innovate and be on the front foot rather than be reactive and wait for everyone else.
“It’s about thinking, ‘Is there a way we can do things differently?’ and so I’d rather be open and listen and adapt and learn, and in most cases it pays dividends.”
The evolving luxury traveller
Jones says the luxury traveller is far more knowledgeable these days, so you have to always know your product.
“The luxury traveller is far more savvy now and has so much information, and it’s constantly changing so you have to update yourself because they all travel extensively and everyone in their circles travels too, so it’s being able to be a trusted voice for them so when you give a recommendation they listen.
“It’s also so important to know what’s happening in their lives because it keeps us connected with them as that trusted advisor and their go-to because that’s the only way or you will lose them.”
Driving change
“Our focus has been about trying to ingrain responsible travel and sustainable tourism in our everyday narrative to our clients, and we’ve made an intentional effort to integrate it.
“So, for example, if we suggest a small group tour and it’s B Corp certified, we explain what that is, so we’ve shifted the lens as an education piece on our clients to try to make them care.”
She says they’ve also been regularly surveying their clients, and are seeing a dramatic shift in the way the luxury traveller thinks about sustainable travel.
“Six months after our first survey, the comments were overwhelming that by offering them a sustainable option, it had made an impact on the decisions they made.
“Seventy per cent said they had made a decision based on the information we gave them, and they all wanted more about giving back to the community.”
She says this is an area everyone in the industry needs to work harder on.
“We are building our own product database around it and marking suitable policies around it, and so it’s ready to go… but it’s only as good as the information we can get, and half the time it’s not there, so it’s not easy, and we should all be doing this.
“There’s a lot of work to do in this space, but it needs to come from supply partners to us because we’re in the perfect position to educate travellers.
“We work in silos far too often, and there has to be collaboration around this. If there were 10 businesses sharing this information in a mutual database, then imagine how effective we could all be.”
For more information, visit Sonia Jones Travel.
