This is the story of a man who I think, and this may sound twee, has found the key to happiness. And that key not only opens the door to staying sane in the travel industry, but he also uses it to unlock the wonders of the world for his clients and those lucky enough to spend even just a little time in his company. This is also the story of a man who will likely deny all of this and instead deflect praise with a joke. This is the story of Andrew Sullivan.
When Andrew Sullivan, the Director of The Don’t Forget Travel Group decided he wanted to sell travel, he did. Even though he’d only ever worked in media. He’d been with Austereo for over a decade. And his job took him across the country and even to Greece for a year. But when he came back, things were different.
“I’ve always been a traveller and everyone used to come and ask me for advice on travel,” he tells Karryon. “And I was giving away all this information for free.”
Two years later, he opened the doors of his travel agency.
And he wanted no part of a bigger corporation and the associated business speak.
“I didn’t want strategic pillars and mission statements. I was over Who Moved My Cheese! All I wanted was to start a little business and help people to travel around the world. That was basically the motivation for everything.”
So how did that first year go, I ask?
“I opened the business in January and in February I went on a trip.”
“I literally opened the door and employed staff and everything. And I just thought that stupid thing that everyone’s just gonna walk in the door and book trips.”
And in some ways, that’s exactly what happened.
Andrew’s time in media meant that he had a very big circle of contacts. He also had a large circle of friends. And there were no travel agents in the group.
He did well that first year. And every (non-lockdown pandemic) year since.
The pandemic, social media and positivity
It was Friday the 13th, 2020. Andrew was at a trade lunch and everyone’s phones were pinging. Remember the beginning of the pandemic? “We were all in denial,” Andrew says.
By September of that year, like so many in the travel industry, Andrew had moved his business home.
“We’d sold off all the furniture, all the icons that were The Don’t Forget Travel Group. And so I walked away and moved what was left back into my house. And to be quite honest, from that moment, I was actually relieved.”
“I was also really sick of the pity.”
“I wanted people to know that even though there was no business didn’t mean that I was out of business. That I was still planning to stick it out.”
It was at this point that Andrew started playing around with reels.
“I did that for my own mental health. People would just pay me out. And I didn’t care. I was really enjoying it.
“And it helped me keep a positive outlook on things.”
Andrew also, strangely enjoyed the logistical challenges of the pandemic.
“I had one client who was on an offshore oil rig out of Angola and needed to get back. Now just getting back from Angola at the best of times is difficult, but during COVID… I found one flight coming from Port Moresby to Brisbane that had one seat on it. And I said, ‘Okay, I need to somehow get you to Port Moresby from Angola to meet this one last flight before everything completely shuts down’. And then I had to keep him on the move for nearly 10 days. Because if he stayed in a city he’d have to quarantine so he had to stay in transit.”
Andrew got the man home. “It was like magic,” he said.
“The challenges of COVID made me realize how resilient I was, how resilient everyone was.”
The power of passion
Andrew has worked nearly every day since May last year.
I ask what he does outside of work. His answer is work. But when work is travel and travel is life, it doesn’t sound half bad. He takes a break from one client by working on another, he says. And his mornings are spent updating socials, connecting.
The passion helps.
But when you ask Andrew about if he has a special a-ha travel moment, he doesn’t have one.
“I’m like a lobster in water. It’s a slow burn,” he says.
“Travel changes everybody, but I don’t think there’s ever been a wow moment where I’ve gone I’m going to be different from this moment onwards. Because I think every time you travel, you learn something new either about other people or yourself. And the more you see other cultures and other things, I think you just become more of an open person or more tolerant person.”
“I went to Uzbekistan before COVID and loved it. I’m now trying to convince people that that’s the new hotspot. Really difficult.”
He says this and yet he managed to get someone to go there this year.
Next, on the cards is Estonia and Latvia.
What I learned from Andrew
We all get hit. It could be something massive like a global pandemic or something relatively trivial at work. I started my chat with Andrew feeling a bit down about something or other. And by the time we were done, I was inspired. Because here was a man who wanted to do something and did it.
“But if I was starting out again,” he says, “I would align myself with someone in the industry.”
“Someone who’s a bit of a leader in the industry to help guide me. I would get a mentor who’s passionate. That’s probably what I would do. And just suck up all the information you can.
“Because I think most people get into the industry because they love travel. And you got to keep that love alive because it’s really the only thing that keeps you in it and keeps you bound to it.”
