How to Stop Sounding Like Every Other Travel Advisor Online
Blog Overview: Your website copy sounds professional. It's warm, it mentions your experience, and it could belong to almost any travel advisor online. If that sentence landed somewhere uncomfortable, this post is for you. We're covering why generic copy happens, what brand voice actually looks like in practice, how to figure out which voice type you are, and what to do with that information once you have it.
You've rewritten your About page three times this month. The current version is fine. It’s warm, professional, mentions your years of experience and your love of travel — and it sounds almost exactly like the five other advisors you follow on Instagram. You know this. You stare at it for another minute, change one word, change it back, and close the tab. I think we’ve all been there.
The problem isn't that you can't write. It's that you're trying to write before you've done the thing that has to happen first.
The Step Most Travel Advisors Skip Before Writing Any Copy
Before you write a word of website copy, a bio, a caption, or an email sequence, there's a layer of thinking most people skip. Not because it's hard, but because nobody told them it existed.
That layer is your brand voice. Not a list of adjectives on a sticky note. A real, documented understanding of how you sound when you're at your best — the words you reach for, the ones you'd never use, what your emails sound like when a client writes back and says 'that's exactly what I needed to hear.'
I spent 15 years as a travel advisor before I ever built a website for one, and the advisors whose copy stood out weren't the ones with the most credentials or the most polished design. They were the ones who sounded like themselves. It’s not just TAs, it’s everyone. We’re all craving personality, someone that we click with.
That matters more now than it ever has. Every industry has a thousand and one service providers, and AI tools can produce passable copy in seconds, which means passable copy is everywhere. The advisors who cut through aren't the ones with better prompts — they're the ones who know their voice well enough to brief those tools properly, or to recognize when a draft doesn't sound like them and fix it.
Generic in, generic out. That's not a Claude (or AI) problem. It's a voice problem.
What ‘Brand Voice’ Actually Looks Like: A Before and After
Take something almost every travel advisor writes at some point: a line about why they specialize in what they do.
Without a clear voice: 'I specialize in luxury African safari experiences. I work with premium suppliers to create unforgettable journeys tailored to your unique preferences.' 😴
With a specific voice: 'The thing nobody tells you about safari is that it's not really about the animals. It's about sitting in complete silence in the middle of somewhere vast and wild and feeling genuinely small in the best possible way. I plan these trips because that feeling is worth every cent, and I want people to experience it.' 🙌🏻
Same offer. Completely different person. The second one you remember. The first one you scroll past.
Voice isn't about being a better writer. It's about being a more specific one.
The 6 Travel Advisor Voice Types: Which One Are You?
Before you write anything, it helps to know which voice archetype you naturally lean toward. Most advisors fall into one of these — or a blend of two:
The Insider: Speaks from access and relationships. 'I know things you don't, and I'm letting you in.'
The Authority: Speaks from experience and confidence. 'I've done this a hundred times, trust me.'
The Confidante: Speaks from empathy and shared experience. 'I've been where you are, I get it.'
The Straight Shooter: Speaks from honesty and efficiency. 'Here's what you actually need to know.'
The Enthusiast: Speaks from genuine passion. 'I just got back from Bhutan and I'm still thinking about it.'
The Educator: Speaks from a depth of knowledge. 'Most people don't realize that guide quality matters more than lodge choice.'
Think about how you talk on discovery calls — not how you think you should sound, but how you actually sound when the conversation is going well, and you're in your element. That's your primary archetype. Most advisors are a blend of two, and if you've never named yours, that's part of why your copy keeps coming out feeling slightly off. You're writing without knowing which direction you're naturally pulling in.
What Generic Copy Costs Travel Advisors (beyond lost clients)
Clients are comparing you before they ever reach out. They land on your website, read a few sentences, and either feel something click, or they don't. The advisor whose copy sounds like a real person — specific, grounded, like someone worth trusting — gets the inquiry. The one whose copy sounds like everyone else gets scrolled past, and usually never knows why.
The internal cost is just as real. When you don't have a documented voice to work from, you start from scratch every single time. Every caption is a guessing game. Every bio rewrite takes longer than it should. And when you sit down to use AI tools to help, which most of us are doing now, you're handing a blank slate to something that defaults to the average of everything it's ever read. That average is exactly what you're trying not to sound like.
Having your voice documented changes all of that. Writing gets faster because you're not reinventing yourself every time you open a doc. Copywriters deliver better work because they actually know what you sound like. And AI tools stop producing generic drafts because you've given them something real to work from.
How to Find Your Brand Voice as a Travel Advisor
‘Finding’ your brand voice isn't a writing exercise. It's a thinking exercise — you're not producing copy, you're doing the work that makes copy possible.
👀 And shocker - I’ve got a comprehensive Google Doc resource to help you work through this!
It looks like answering honest questions about how you actually communicate:
How do you talk to clients on discovery calls?
What frustrates you about typical travel advisor copy?
How would your best clients describe the way you communicate?
What do you sound like when you're genuinely excited about a recommendation, not performing excitement?
Your first instinct on these is almost always right. The overthought answer is rarely the true one.
From there, you work through which archetypes resonate, calibrate against real examples, and come out with a completed Voice Profile — three words that describe your voice, documented examples of what it does and doesn't do, and a sample sentence that sounds exactly like you. Something concrete you can reference every time you sit down to write, hand to a copywriter with confidence, or use to brief an AI tool so the output actually sounds like you instead of everyone else.
Plan for 60 to 90 minutes. Do it in one sitting or spread it across a few days. Either works — some people like to let a section sit overnight before they move on.
If you've been circling the same About page bio for longer than feels reasonable, this is probably what's been missing. Not better words, just a clearer sense of the specific words you're looking for. That's a solvable problem, and one of the most satisfying ones to work through once you actually sit down and do it.
The Voice Discovery Guide for Travel Advisors
This guide walks you through five exercises designed to help you identify how you actually communicate — your natural tone, the words you reach for, the things you say that nobody else would say quite that way. It's the work you do before you write anything. Before you hire a copywriter. Before you brief a designer. Before you ask an AI tool to write in your voice.
PS. If you want to go further, Build Your Brand Voice with Claude covers the whole strategic foundation: your ideal client profile, your brand voice, and a complete system for using Claude across your marketing so everything you put out actually sounds like you, consistently.
🚀 LAUNCHING IN THE SHOP BY THE END OF MARCH 👀
Want to take the next step and match your website to your expertise and level of clients you serve? At Birch & Bud Design Co., I understand the heart and soul you put into your work. Your website should be a reflection of that passion, a space where your clients can see the care and thoughtfulness you bring to your role.
If you’re ready to invest in a website that truly represents your brand, I’m here to help!
