One of the neatest things about regular home-based travel agent conventions like the Home-Based Travel Agent Forum being held in Boston from October 17 to 19 is the chance to visit cruise ships that perhaps you’ve never had the opportunity to sail on.

This time around RCL’s Explorer of the Seas and MSC’s Poesia will be in Boston harbor and open to travel agents registered at the Forum on October 20th.

This represents an exceptional opportunity since both ships will be in the middle of “leaf peeping” cruises and cruise lines do not usually accommodate ship inspections for agents in the middle of a cruise. On top of that, they’re throwing in lunch!

Space is limited and open only to agents who are registered at the Forum. So if you haven’t done so already, sign up now.

Full registration info is here:

http://bit.ly/qHEJw9

The booth reservation for my publishing company, The Intrepid Traveler, at the trade show is now official. Trade show hours are Tuesday from 4 to 6:30 and Wednesday from 10 to 12:30. Even if you are not registered for the Forum, you can get in to the trade show for free.

Hope to see you in Boston!

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As you may remember, I recently made available in convenient Kindle 
format a selection of articles from past issues of the “Home-Based Travel Agent Newsletter.”

Now Volume 2 has joined Volume 1.

The information in these articles is, I would like to think, both helpful
 and timeless. Some of the topics covered are mentioned in the Home-
Based Travel Agent Success Course, but many other extend the
 course material or touch on related topics.

Here are links to both volumes on Amazon.com:

Volume One: 
http://amzn.to/oyf6o2

Volume Two: http://amzn.to/pb4xq4

You will find a complete listing of the Table of Contents of each
 volume on those pages.

Remember that you do not need a Kindle to read these ebooks. There
 is a free Kindle app that will let you read Kindle books on multiple
 platforms. Also, if you prefer the Nook, I hope to have both volumes
 available in that format (and perhaps others) shortly. I’ll keep you posted.

By the way, if you are not already subscribed to the newsletter, you can do so simply by entering your email address in the box to the right of this article.

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I’m heading to Boston in October to participate in the Home-Based Travel
Agent Forum, sponsored by OSSN and managed by the Travel Show Marketing
Group. If you’ve never been to one of these events, why not make this one
 your first? Not only would I love to have the chance to meet you, but you’ll
 get a whole lot more out of the experience than just my hearty handshake.

Those of you who have my course know how pumped I am about the many
 continuing education and networking opportunities that are available to 
home-based travel agents. Many of them are small-scale and local, usually 
sponsored by a supplier. Then there are the regular meetings, sometimes
 monthly, sometimes farther apart, that are organized by local OSSN 
chapters around the country (there are more than 80).

But the Home-Based Travel Agent Forum is the granddaddy of them all. You
 will seldom have the opportunity to rub shoulders with so many heavy 
hitters, starting with OSSN stalwarts like OSSN founder and president Gary
 Fee and Anita Pagliasso, who has made it her mission to help home-based
 travel agents achieve the level of success that she has enjoyed.

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There have been over 200 issues of the “Home-Based Travel Agent Newsletter” since I started it I can’t remember how long ago.

That adds up to a lot of articles. I never archived the newsletter online because much of the content was time-specific and I didn’t want to confuse people who might stumble on out of date information thanks to a Google search.

But I realized that a lot of the articles didn’t have an “expiration date” and many only needed minor edits to make them timely once again.

So I decided to gather together to best of the material in the newsletter and make it available in a convenient ebook format via Amazon’s Kindle store. Here’s the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Home-Based-Travel-Agent-Newsletter-ebook/dp/B005C5T9O6/

If you don’t have a Kindle, that’s no longer the insurmountable problem it was a few years ago. You can get a free Kindle app that will let you read Kindle books on your computer, iPad, or smartphone.

I hope you find the material useful and, if you do, I hope you’ll leave a review on Amazon. Thanks.

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HomeTravelAgency.com and The Home-Based Travel Agent Success Course now have a “fan page” on Facebook.

It’s another way to stay in touch and join the conversation. To join in, just point your browser to . . .

http://www.facebook.com/hometravelagency

. . . and click the Like button. See you there!

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I used to send out a bi-weekly newsletter to anyone who requested it. It was fun to write (well, sometimes) and it was quite popular. I gave it up for a number of reasons.

One was the constant pressure of time. So much to do, so little time to do it in. Another reason was cost. Yes, I know email is “free” but when you have a very large list (mine had grown to over 20,000) the cost of managing it adds up to hundreds of dollars a month.

But when I suspended the newsletter I got a lot of emails asking “Where’s the newsletter? Did you lose my email address?” I still get some from time to time as people discover old issues in their email archives.

So I have decided to bring it back.
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The Home-Based Travel Agent Success Course has been revised and updated and PDFs the new version are available for download by those who have purchased the course in the past. Remember, once you have purchased the course you have lifetime access to the electronic version of the course, including all future updates.

The modules with major changes are . . .

Module 6: Host Agency Directory, which has been extensively updated. Now included are host agencies in Australia, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, and South Africa, as well as many in the U.S. and Canada.

Module 7: IATA Numbers and Beyond has all the latest details on the various ways to acquire your own unique, industry-approved identifier.

The other modules have been updated slightly, to correct out of date information and typos.

If you have the printed version, you can quickly determine whether the electronic version is newer by comparing the copyright pages in your printed text and in the PDF.

To download the latest version simply log on here by entering the user name and password you created when you purchased the course.

If you have not invested in your success as a home-based travel agent, you can remedy that oversight here.

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