Rebuilding a Travel Business From Scratch With Ali Raymer: Surviving and Thriving After COVID

I joined Danny Ray to talk about building a travel business from nothing, surviving COVID, and what it actually takes to scale beyond yourself.

How did I get started in the travel industry?

I was a high school English teacher running our school's travel club, and my husband's aunt, who owned her own agency, told me I could be selling travel to people with money instead of students with none. I learned the business by shadowing her every summer.

What did COVID actually do to my business?

It wiped it out completely. I made almost nothing that year and went back to teaching temporarily just to survive financially, all while raising a newborn. I kept telling myself to stay the course because the industry would come back.

What turned things around for me?

A FAM trip to Cabo in 2021 was the turning point. I realized I needed my own brand instead of relying entirely on my agency's identity, so I built my own website and started marketing myself directly to the kind of clients I wanted to attract.

Why did I eventually build a team instead of staying solo?

Revenge travel hit so hard after COVID that I became the bottleneck in my own business. I had to learn to say no to the trip types that weren't my strength and bring on people whose superpowers filled those gaps, which let me scale far beyond what I could do alone.

What's my honest advice for someone thinking about starting their own business?

Be willing to work for free in the beginning and stay relentless. I made pennies an hour for years before this became sustainable, and the willingness to keep showing up without immediate payoff is what separates the people who make it from the people who quit.