WISER TRAVEL AGENTS BUSINESS FORMS

MEET THE WTA FORMS CREATOR

ABOUT CELESTE – PROFESSIONAL PROFILE

Picture of forms creator
Celeste Cooley

Meet Celeste Cooley, the WTA Forms Creator (Wiser Travel Agents Business Forms and Documents).  A Chicago native who lived in Southern California all of her adult life until she retired.  Celeste currently lives in Bordeaux, France.  She has been developing administrative forms for decades.  A former luxury travel advisor; in 2021, she closed her travel agency to retire from the travel industry. 

TRAVEL EDUCATION

As an avid history buff and someone who loves to travel, becoming a travel agent was a natural career transition for Celeste.  After finishing travel school in 1996, she built a successful luxury agency with her then husband who helped market the business. 

This WTA Forms creator actually began developing travel agency forms when she first worked at a storefront travel agency to learn the ropes.  Noticing there were very limited amounts of administrative forms needed to carry out her duties, with an urge to create a few new forms put her on that path.  While the agency had about four forms they used for gathering client information there were no forms for agents to track personal sales and commission earnings.  And she needed a way to track her client’s budgets and travel costs more efficiently.  Creating forms came from the need to better carry out her daily duties more efficiently and to service her clients more effectively.

WTA FORMS CREATOR – THE BUSINESS DOCUMENTS

Celeste, the WTA Forms Creator, got the notion for this project after she shared some of her business forms with a few agent colleagues via email.  Soon other travel agents began requesting those forms as well.  Consequently, she knew that fulfilling these forms requests  would be a huge undertaking and a timely task using only email.  Since the forms included her agency branding they would need a generic updating.  Plus, the forms had to be modifiable and easy for travel agents to add their own branding. 

At the same time, Celeste began thinking about a quicker means of delivering all those forms to travel agents instead of “one by one” via email.  Obviously, the forms also needed packaging in some way.  And they would have to be digital and downloadable for immediate and easy access.  So, in taking on this task she created an online business, Wiser Travel Agents Business Forms, to make this digital format more accessible.

CURATING HER FORMS

Initially, Celeste produced these travel agency business forms out of necessity eons ago for her personal office use as a travel agent.  In the beginning, the thought about sharing these documents or even selling the forms on a small or large-scale never entered her mind even though there was a growing demand.  These documents were simply created to save her time and to help run her travel business more efficiently.  Then in late 2016, the need was evident by all the requests she had received for sharing her forms.

Although it became an arduous task to edit and update the first fifty of these travel agent business forms; she began this adaption process in early 2017.  The entire process of revising, editing, and reformatting these documents took about four months to complete.  Shortly after completing those updates, Celeste put the project on hold for two weeks to go on a planned Travel Media FAM Trip to Ethiopia. 

Upon returning home, her continued effort to build this website took two more months to complete.  Nevertheless, after overcoming all sorts of unexpected delays and technical challenges with setting up the website, all the work was finally completed and the site was published in July 2017.  It wasn’t until then that she realized her goal to develop and complete this task of making these forms available to travel agents online via digital download was met.

HER VISION

The initial goal for this WTA (Wiser Travel Agents) Business Forms Creator was to revise and complete just a few of the more important client and administrative forms.  No amount of planning could prepare or calculate the scope of this project and the time it took to complete it.  Nevertheless, once the revisions were underway it became clear that every document she used fulfilled a particular need or task and did so chronologically.  Celeste knew then that it was imperative for her to include, add, and revise more forms than she had originally planned to offer her colleagues through her website.

Although she had shared a few forms in the past, it was only after commencing this project that she realized her forms could possibly become the standard business documents used in the travel industry by English Speaking agents throughout North America and certain US territories.  Celeste now envisions other ways she can develop this travel agency documents business by adding other products and services in the near future like travel agent business consultation and travel agent mentoring.  Currently, she hopes the documents offered here can one day help fulfill the business needs of travel agents worldwide.

WTA FORMS CREATOR – IN CLOSING

Finally, it’s been a pleasure to create and update these professional Travel Agents Business Forms and Documents for you.  I’ve enjoyed preparing my treasured WTA business forms for agents as a whole.  Our industry so desperately needed these standardized agency business forms.  Even though it was a laborious, often frustrating, and time-consuming task I prevailed.  In doing so, I completed this project without losing my mind.  It was so important to make this happen so I strived to fulfill my goal and deliver what I promised.  The results are real.  The forms are professional and easy to use. From a travel agent created for travel agents.