From Oil Exec to Luxury Travel: Building a Business with Authenticity

Years in public-facing hospitality positions have helped me curate a well-tuned radar for someone's "customer service voice" — that bright, frictionless register people slip into when they want you to feel handled rather than heard. Luxury travel advisor Alisha Myers (and my colleague for the past year) does not have one.

Alisha's path into luxury travel is unconventional, and she arrived just two years ago to LuxRally Travel. Now she's one of LuxRally Travel's highest-earning agents with a multitude of high-net-worth clients and incredible trips under her belt — all while raising two kids and building a luxury travel business based on authenticity and unforgettable experiences.

So how does someone enter the luxury travel industry so effortlessly, without acquiring the industry's most superficial armor? For Alisha, the answer lies not in hospitality at all, but in the boardrooms, oil fields, and construction sites of Australia.

From Oil Exec to Luxury Travel Advisor: A Complete Career Change

She came to the United States from Australia in 2019 as an oil and gas executive sent to expand her company's footprint across North America. Her days were filled with contract negotiations and constant movement — the kind of high-stakes, high-mileage career that lands you on "Top 10 Women in Oil and Gas" lists — as she did in 2021.

But consistently woven through all of it was travel itself. She had spent years managing travel logistics for construction companies with hundreds of employees, building booking systems, training executive assistants and coordinating complex itineraries at scale. She was, in many ways, already doing work she loved. She just hadn't named it yet.

In 2022, Alisha became a mother, and the pause that followed changed everything. During maternity leave, with Jordan in her arms and years of corporate momentum behind her, she confronted a more consequential question: what path would create the most fulfilling and positive life for her and her family while still challenging her and allowing her to be present?

The answer was the travel. The organizing, the coordinating, the advocating, the architecture of a seamless journey from start to end. But it was never going to be travel in isolation. It had to serve the people she had worked alongside for years, the network built, and the level of expectation she already understood. Researching opportunities led her to an article about an up-and-coming travel agent shaking up the industry with a unique approach: no fees. Alisha reached out to David Eisen.

Rebranding from the Ground Up

The shift to a career in travel was not simple. Alisha had spent years building a reputation in a completely different industry, and reputations, as she discovered, have a particular gravity. "When people see you as something," she explains, "it's hard to see you as something else."

People saw her as a specialist in the oil and gas industry — credentialed, established, internationally known. To walk into a luxury travel career sent her back to the start. For a self-described introverted extrovert, the prospect of rebuilding a client base from scratch — pushing herself out into rooms where no one knew her name — required a daily act of will.

But Alisha was determined, and she was clear-eyed about one thing: this was never going to be a side project.

"I knew I had to show up every day," she says. "I understand other people are transitioning, but if you're not showing up every day… I knew this was where I was going. It was never going to be a part-time, on-the-side thing. It was about building a business. A successful business."

So she showed up. Every single day. In 2024 when she was pregnant with Christian she continued to show up. She attended calls, but more than that, she showed up for people who didn't yet know she was doing it. Constant education, constant networking, constant advocacy, constantly sharing what she'd built. She pushed herself to connect with anyone who might benefit from her help.

Authenticity as a Business Strategy

What makes Alisha unusual in the luxury travel space is not her work ethic — though it is formidable — but her refusal to adopt a persona. As I mentioned earlier, she does not have a "customer service voice."

Having spent years in public-facing hospitality, I can spot the shift that happens when someone toggles into professional mode — the slight lift in pitch, the smoothing of edges. Alisha doesn't do it. If you're her client, you're a friend. It is that uncomplicated, and that rare.

"We operate on a professional level," she says, "but I'm not afraid to be myself. If they're investing this much into their travel, they should know who you are."

It's a quote that is direct, slightly irreverent, and completely disarming — which is, of course, exactly the point. Her top clients are on her family's Christmas card list, and she is on theirs. The majority of Alisha's business comes from referrals, and that is not an accident. It is the natural result of treating every client's journey with the care she would give a close friend.

She doesn't want to be a salesperson. She doesn't ever want people to feel sold to. What makes this travel advisor stand out is her commitment to showing up as herself, with the most genuine standards of care — making the career transition to the travel industry without compromising what she had already built.

The Host Travel Agency: The Team Behind the Transition

Alisha did not try to make this leap alone — she shares that LuxRally Travel was essential in supporting her through it.

Deahne Anderson, our Groups Director, helped her immensely in mentoring her through the transition, and Alisha speaks of it with genuine respect. Brandon Haen reshaped her perspective on ultra-high-net-worth clients, including how to navigate the impossible requests that come with that territory. "There's never been any jealousy," she says of the team dynamic. "It's motivation and respect, in both directions." Corey Deal, Director of Concierge Services, delivers the same level of care Alisha is known for with her VIP clients, grounded in a genuine respect for the business she has built and the relationships behind it.

Co-founder and CMO Courtney Eisen mentored Alisha in her marketing efforts and further reinforced something Alisha had felt instinctively: there is always a why behind every interaction, and authenticity is what drives the interaction to be memorable. Courtney meets with every agent individually, not because it's required, but because it reflects how she — and the host agency she and David have built — operates.

"You don't get access to people like them at other agencies," she says. The generosity of shared expertise — freely given, without competition — is a LuxRally Travel standard she does not take for granted.

The technology has also been essential. Beyond having exclusive access to the best booking engine in the industry right now, she speaks of the tools the host agency has provided as essential to helping build this business so quickly. The hands-on leadership stands out especially: Alisha recalls asking David — the CEO and mind behind our proprietary tech — for a specific filter to speed up her sales process. He called her back and fixed it within an hour.

"He wants his agents to be able to focus on their clients," she says. Between the tech, the business tools, the support, and the perspective shift, LuxRally Travel replaced what she calls a convoluted process with something that "lets travel agents simply be travel agents."

Alisha called special attention to LuxRally Travel's Forbes Travel Guide endorsement as well—one of only 62 travel agencies in the world with the badge. When the personal assistant of one of her UHNW clients reached out with an impossible booking for three suites in St. Moritz just weeks from departure, it was leveraging that endorsement that secured her client their dream festive stay—confirmed within 24 hours via personal contact with the General Manager.

Building a Luxury Travel Business: What Comes Next

Alisha Myers is not interested in minimums. She doesn't even know what they are anymore; that information was filed away as unessential.

"I do this because I'm building something," she says, "and I know the vision in my head. It was never going to be on the side. I'm building something."

She runs the family. She runs the business. She runs after the kids — sometimes literally, between calls. Alongside her is her husband, Scotty, a retired Command Chief with 30 years of service in U.S. Air Force Special Operations, whose discipline, leadership, perspective, and cheerleading have helped shape the foundation of what she is building — and continue to influence the work they support together through the TACP Foundation. The shift from a large corporation to building her own enterprise has been complete.

Her biggest tip for new travel agents, she says, is to attend the annual LuxRally Travel symposium; she describes it as curated and essential — not just for networking, but as a measure of one's seriousness. "How serious are you about the business?" she asks. "You're almost doing yourself a disservice if you start with the mindset of 'I just need to meet my minimum."

What Alisha has built is not simply a career change. It is a second act constructed with the same intensity and intelligence that made her one of the top women in oil and gas — but this time, on her own terms, in her own voice, with the freedom to care about her clients the way she has always cared about the people in her life. No customer service voice required.