Taylor Ruecking assumed his role as president of the Travel Institute earlier this month following Diane Petras' retirement. Ruecking got his start in the industry in high school working at his father's agency where, he quipped, "I had the privilege of working on ARC reports on my Friday nights." (Ruecking's father, the late Scott Ahlsmith, served as a chairman of the Travel Institute.) After stints in marketing and medical education, Ruecking joined the institute 11 years ago and was tasked with modernizing its technology platform and learning-management system. Senior editor Jamie Biesiada spoke with Ruecking about his tenure and plans for the Travel Institute, which was founded in 1964.
Taylor Ruecking
Q: What have you focused on since joining the institute?
A: When I started, everything was in textbook format. We really didn't have an online presence, any e-commerce, anything like that. It's evolved. Obviously, the industry has evolved tremendously, as well. My initial projects were bringing everything online, taking my knowledge from previous experiences and building online platforms, taking all of our content, modernizing it and making it a lot more accessible. But also, [making it] easier for us to adapt to marketplace changes in the travel industry and ... update the content more quickly. Obviously, when you have print, that becomes a little bit more challenging, so we were able to be a lot more dynamic with what we were working on to be able to meet the industry needs. And then, just the nerdy stuff: going through efficiency; AI usage currently is a big deal, leveraging that internally; and maximizing our functionality and making sure that we can just be elastic and change and meet those demands.
Q: What are your main goals as president?
A: Making sure that we're constantly updating content, that we're promoting updated content. Being flexible and listening to travel advisors, listening to those knowledge gaps that they may have. Listening to partners, seeing what their travel advisors' needs are and making sure that we're writing for that, that we're providing that educational outcome so that they're successful. In addition to that -- and we're not sharing it quite yet, but I'll give you a little tease on it -- making sure that we do meet those travel advisors wherever they are; they're not just at the Travel Institute. Making sure that we establish those partnerships and allow our content to be distributed. I think there's some really exciting opportunities where our gold standard, as we say, of educational outcomes meets those travel advisors wherever they are in their career, wherever they are with their business.
Q: Can you give me your 20,000-foot view on the state of advisor education today? We're in a really interesting period with so many advisors coming into the industry. What's it like out there?
A: The travel industry, always, it's constantly changing. I know that's not unique, but in travel, it always seems to be warp speed. So yes, it's making sure that we're listening to the changes in the environments, whether it's in sales or in AI. Meeting their educational needs so that we can fill in those knowledge gaps to make them successful.
It's also being responsive in terms of our design and making sure that there's interactions and making sure that it's a multimedia, rich experience for them so that they can retain the knowledge. It's not just reading texts; we can meet them on a cellphone, on a tablet. Maybe they're enjoying a vacation of their own; they can pull it out and they can read a module, and they continue progressing through education.
Q: What's your message to advisors today?
A: A reminder that we really are for the travel industry. We were founded by the travel industry, and we are your Travel Institute.