Viva la Vida Travel with Carmen Schaffer

As a Travel Agent or as I prefer to call myself, a Travel Ambassador, the struggle to compete in an online, click friendly world of travel is challenging at best.  Truth be told,  I've often wondered why more people aren't flocking to Viva la Vida Travel. Am I trying too hard? What am I doing wrong? I've struggled with my approach to business, my marketing, my focus group of clients and how to "find them" and have compared myself to other agents time and time again only to feel discouraged by my seemingly lack of "success" in the market. I'm not  nor have I ever been a one size fits all kind of a woman. I've never fit into any prescribed mold and have tended to follow my hearts passion when it comes to work and life in general.  Is that always the most lucrative way to be in this day and age? Hardly. Is it respected? Maybe. Is it what I know how to do? Yes. Does it work for me in my business? That depends on how you look at it. The goal...

I recently came back from my first trip to Ixtapa and Zihuatenjo on Mexico's Pacific coast and I must say that I was incredibly impressed. Everything I had ever heard about Ixtapa and Zihuatenejo was that it was a destination mostly inhabited by older and retired travelers who spent their winter months months there. By looking around the airplane, my hunch was right as the average age of the travelers was about 55. En route to Ixtapa, I was seated next to a lovely couple who were headed there for their 31rst year. "We have been to other places before in Mexico, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, etc. but we always keep coming back here because it just feels like home. The people are so nice and we have friends here who we now call family."  I was intrigued by their passion for the destination and was excited to explore on my own. I arrived at the Zihuatenejo airport and breezed through customs and immigration and before I knew it, I was outside waiting for my t...