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We’re pleased to share that Therefore has become an associate member of the United States Tour Operators Association (USTOA).
USTOA is a trade association bringing together tour operators and industry partners serving the U.S. market. It was founded in 1972, when a small group of California tour operators came together following a series of bankruptcies that had left travelers out of pocket. It went on to become the first travel association to establish a consumer protection fund; a commitment continues to this day, with members backing travellers’ deposits with $1 million in financial protection.
There’s something about that which resonates pretty strongly with us.
Doing right by our clients sometimes comes at a cost. Over the years, there have been plenty of occasions at Therefore where we’ve chosen to absorb that cost (commercially or otherwise) because it was the right thing to do. So the values behind USTOA, and the level of responsibility its members take towards their guests, feel familiar.
Our work in travel and tourism has grown significantly over the past eight years, and with it our understanding of what makes this industry different.
Multi-day tours in particular are complex businesses. There are long and sometimes unpredictable paths to purchase, huge amounts of content, complicated inventory and product structures, multiple destinations and departure dates, and customers making decisions that are both financially significant and deeply personal.
We’ve had the opportunity to work with travel brands across North America, including operators throughout the eastern and central U.S., and many of our clients are already USTOA members. Joining the association feels like a natural next step and a signal of where we intend to keep investing our time and expertise.
It’s also a particularly interesting time to be working in travel.
The way people discover and book trips is changing immeasurably. Booking behavior today already looks different from two years ago, and there’s every reason to think it will look very different again two years from now.
Discovery is happening across more channels. Search is changing. Social platforms increasingly influence where people go. And AI is beginning to reshape both how people research trips and, increasingly, how they book them.
That creates some genuinely big questions for travel businesses: about digital experience, content systems, data, personalization and how AI should fit into all of it. Those are areas where we’re excited to contribute our perspective to the USTOA community.
But one of the things we love about this industry is that, even as technology changes almost everything around it, travel itself remains profoundly human. A great trip can change somebody. And the people who make those experiences possible - the guides, trip leaders, destination experts, vacation consultants and the many others on the ground - have knowledge and judgement that technology should help amplify, not replace.
The opportunity, as we see it, is to use technology to free those people up to spend more time doing the things only they can do. That combination makes travel a fascinating space to build in: rapidly changing, full of opportunity for innovation, but still rooted in something very human.
And doing good work in it increasingly demands focus and deep expertise. That’s what becoming a USTOA associate member represents for us. We’re looking forward to learning from the community, contributing where we can and getting more involved over the years ahead.
We’ll also be attending the USTOA Annual Conference & Marketplace for the first time later this year. If you’re going to be there too, please reach out. We’d love to meet you.
