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How to Build Relationships With BDMs & Get Invited on Travel Agent FAM Trips

Season #3

Marcie Muensterman

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How do travel advisors actually build relationships with BDMs? And how do you get invited on travel agent FAM trips without constantly asking, “When’s the next FAM?”

It starts long before the invitation.

In this episode of the No BS Travel Advisor Podcast, Marcie breaks down how travel advisors can build genuine, long-term relationships with Business Development Managers (BDMs), supplier representatives, resort partners, and other travel industry professionals.

Inspired by two very different real-life BDM relationships, one that clicked almost immediately and another that took a full year of intentional relationship-building before a FAM invitation arrived, Marcie explains why your goal shouldn’t simply be getting invited on a trip.

Your goal should be becoming an advisor people know, trust, remember, and genuinely enjoy working with.

You’ll learn how to find and introduce yourself to your BDM, build familiarity without constantly asking for something, communicate your business and sales goals, support your BDM’s goals, express interest in FAM opportunities professionally, and become someone supplier partners actually want to invest in.

Marcie also tackles a controversial question: Should a host agency or travel agency owner limit an independent contractor’s access to BDMs?

There is a difference between having appropriate communication protocols and preventing travel advisors from building their own professional supplier relationships.

Your host may own the supplier agreement, but your professional reputation and industry relationships are something YOU have to cultivate.

Because your BDM might change companies. You might change hosts. Suppliers merge. Territories change. Business models evolve.

The relationships you build can follow you for decades.

If you’re wondering how to get invited on FAM trips, how to network in the travel industry, how to work with BDMs, or how to build stronger supplier relationships as a travel advisor, this episode gives you the long-game strategy nobody can shortcut for you.

Chapter Timestamps

00:00 – You Have More Time Than You Think: Consistency in Business
Jude’s comeback, Erich’s 100-pound journey, and why building a successful travel business takes longer than most advisors want it to.

03:20 – How Do Travel Agents Actually Get Invited on FAM Trips?
Why this episode was inspired by dinner with your Sandals BDM and a travel advisor friend who cultivated an AIC relationship for a year before getting a FAM invitation.

06:10 – What Does a BDM Actually Do for Travel Advisors?
What Business Development Managers really do, why they are not your personal emergency department, and why only contacting them when you need something is a terrible relationship strategy.

10:45 – How to Start Building a Real Relationship With Your BDM
Why you can still cultivate strong industry relationships even if you cannot attend every conference, trade show, lunch, or in-person event.

16:10 – Step 1: Find Out Who Your BDM Is
How to identify your BDM, register correctly with suppliers, attend their trainings, learn how they communicate, and start paying attention to the people behind the brands you sell.

17:25 – Step 2: Introduce Yourself BEFORE You Need Something
How to make the first connection, follow up after webinars and events, say thank you, and become more than another advisor name in a database.

20:50 – Step 3: Keep Showing Up and Give the Relationship Time
Why one email, webinar, or introduction is not enough and how consistency creates familiarity, trust, and eventually opportunity.

23:10 – Stop Only Contacting Your BDM When You Need Something
How to send good news, celebrate wins, follow up without an ask, and get to know the actual human being behind the BDM title.

26:40 – Tell Your BDM What You’re Building and Ask About Their Goals
How to share specific sales goals, growth plans, niches, hosted group ideas, and ask how you can support what your BDM is trying to accomplish too.

29:35 – How to Ask Your BDM About FAM Trip Opportunities
How to tell a BDM you want to be considered for educational travel, plant the seed without becoming annoying, and why you have to release the outcome.

31:00 – Yes, Your BDM Has to Like You
Why likability, trust, professionalism, flexibility, reputation, and being someone people actually want to travel with matter when FAM invitations are being considered.

33:35 – What to Do When You Finally Get Invited on a FAM
How to show up, learn, create content, sell the product, express gratitude, follow up afterward, and prove that the supplier’s investment in you mattered.

35:05 – Can Your Host Agency Limit Your Access to BDMs?
Why communication protocols are reasonable, but preventing independent contractors from professionally knowing and cultivating relationships with supplier representatives is a very different issue.

37:30 – Build Relationships With People, Not Titles
Why BDMs change jobs, advisors change hosts, suppliers change, and your long-term professional reputation should survive all of it.

39:20 – The Long Game: Nobody Can Build These Relationships for You
Why patience, personal responsibility, consistency, and taking action matter if you want opportunities and a sustainable career in the travel industry.

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