Luxury advisor calls for industry action on 'non-professional' agents

A top luxury advisor has called for major changes across the sector, warning that the profession has been “diluted” by the rise of untrained agents. 

Entrepreneur Amanda Teale believes it’s time to introduce mandatory regulation and normalise charging fees, having noticed what she says is a drop in industry standards since launching her independent firm, Minerva Private Travel & Lifestyle Management, in 1999. 

The Surrey-based company organises bespoke journeys for ultra-wealthy travellers, some of whom have been clients for more than 25 years. Discretion is at the heart of the business, with its evasion of PR and advertising only adding to its exclusivity. 

Today, Teale has just 12 employees; eleven in the UK and one in the US. She refuses to share her telephone number publicly, opting instead to accept clients only via referrals. She keeps her customer network small, and says she only works with people she likes. 

She is unapologetically one of the industry’s most selective and secretive advisors, a strategy that has also made her one of its most in-demand.

Teale’s bookings typically range from £50,000 to £100,000, with her highest to date being a £750,000 private island holiday in the Maldives. She is known to make the impossible possible, having done everything from cordoning off the Belvedere Terrace in Villa Cimbrone, one of the Amalfi Coast’s most prestigious properties, for a proposal, to securing £250,000 of box tickets for the highly-anticipated Oasis reunion tour. She proudly tells me she never takes a day off, and that she will go as far as the moon (if the budget allows) to fulfil her clients’ desires. 

But despite the success of her own career, Teale is concerned about the industry’s future. The travel veteran fears that the sector’s respectability has suffered in recent years due to a rise in untrained agents, whom she believes often lack the skills needed to do the job properly. 

“The biggest problem we have right now is that we’ve opened the floodgates to non-professionals,” Teale tells TTG Luxury. “It’s diluting the industry.” 

Having chosen to fly below the radar for decades, Teale is now determined to speak out about this issue. She insists the sector needs to separate the amateurs from the professionals, and as with any industry, that starts with the introduction of mandatory qualifications.