Notes from the Field: How We Keep the World at Our Fingertips

There is a lot that happens before a Rising Tide itinerary ever reaches a client.

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Every year, Elizabeth and John Cincotta travel to carefully selected industry conferences and gatherings around the world, sitting down face-to-face with hoteliers, destination experts, tourism boards and on-the-ground partners. Some are broad gatherings of the luxury travel industry. Others focus deeply on a particular destination or interest.

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And while the settings can sometimes be glamorous, there is a very practical reason Rising Tide keeps showing up.

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“You think you know it all, but some of these are really small, beautiful, boutique places that you wouldn’t otherwise find,” Elizabeth says. “They might be independent. They’re not associated with Virtuoso or even one of the small luxury hotel brands. They’re just really family-run establishments, which is great. I love having that connection and giving them business.”

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You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

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For Elizabeth, that discovery is one of the most important parts of being a travel advisor.

She recently attended a gathering focused on the Nordic countries while clients were in the middle of a 21-day journey through Scandinavia. There, she learned more about Southern Norway — an area that hadn’t been part of their itinerary.

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“It has absolutely everything that my clients would have loved,” she says. “I was like, ‘I wish I had known.’ And this is why I come to these things.”

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It’s also a reminder that even after years of designing travel around the world, there is always more to discover.

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“A lot of times my clients, especially when they’re going somewhere for the first time, don’t know what they don’t know,” Elizabeth says. “It’s up to me to be able to come and learn about different places and different offerings and match my clients with these.”

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That may mean uncovering a tiny family-owned hotel that isn’t part of a major luxury collection. It could mean learning that a favorite property has completed a major renovation, that a chef is beginning a new residency or that an entirely new experience has become available.

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The world doesn’t stand still, and neither can a great travel advisor. “Things change,” Elizabeth says.

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“Something’s being renovated, or they’re doing an activation, or we’re going to have this at the hotel, or we’re going to have a chef’s residency. We get the emails and everything, but I just find it so much more valuable to have FaceTime with people.”

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Forty Meetings. And Then Forty More.

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This month offers a particularly good example.

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Elizabeth and John are heading to the International Golf Travel Market (IGTM), an industry gathering devoted specifically to golf travel. Elizabeth has been invited to attend for several years but, until recently, didn’t feel Rising Tide had enough demand for golf-focused travel to justify it.

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That has changed.

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As Rising Tide prepares to expand its work in sports and entertainment travel, the pair will arrive at IGTM with two very different areas of expertise — and 40 individual appointments each.

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“I don’t need to know the ins and outs of golf,” Elizabeth says. “But I know how to put together a trip and the important questions to ask.”

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Elizabeth’s meetings will lean heavily into destinations, tourism boards, and the larger travel experience. John, an avid golfer, will dig deeper into courses, clubs, and the technical side of the sport. Together, they’ll come home with 80 conversations’ worth of new knowledge (probably far more). And they’re intentionally looking beyond the obvious.

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“Not Ireland, and not Scotland, because I feel like that’s always where we send clients,” Elizabeth says. “We really wanted to broaden ourselves and see what else is out there.”

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Their schedules include conversations about golf experiences across Northern Italy and France, as well as Japan, Thailand, New Zealand and Patagonia. Because the question isn’t simply where can you play great golf? It’s where can great golf take you?

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Going Beyond the Expected

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Elizabeth has a perfect test case: her older brother.

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“He golfs and goes to Ireland all the time,” she says. “He’s like, ‘Nowhere else is as good.’ And I’m like, ‘You don’t even know what you’re missing.’”

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She started asking him different questions. Does the landscape matter? Do the people and culture surrounding the course matter? What if the course itself isn’t historic in the same way as one of golf’s legendary venues, but everything surrounding it creates an even richer experience?

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“It’s a great course that they’re going to get so much more out of an experience than just golf,” Elizabeth says. “That’s really what I’m hoping to do.”

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It’s an approach that extends far beyond golf.

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Maybe your passion is tennis, food, art, wine, music or history. The obvious experience may be wonderful. But what if there is something you’ve never heard of that suits you even better?

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“At the end of the course, there could be a Michelin dinner on the 18th hole for people. I don’t know,” Elizabeth laughs. “But some of them might say, ‘Whoa, I want to do that.’ It’s my job to make sure that they know what’s available.”

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Relationships You Can’t Build From an Inbox

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There is another reason these gatherings matter: Travel is a relationship business.

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Elizabeth has attended some of the luxury travel industry’s most selective gatherings, including ILTM Cannes and DUCO, where she was one of just 125 advisors from around the world invited to an event focused on Spain and Portugal. Attendance at many of these gatherings requires an application and demonstrated sales, experience, and clientele.

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But access is only valuable if you do something with it.

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“It’s not only about the meetings. You’re always networking,” Elizabeth says. “It’s being able to connect with the people I already know or meeting new people, which is also really, really valuable for the business.”

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Those relationships become part of every Rising Tide journey. When a client calls with a dream, a milestone or even just a vague feeling that they want to go somewhere extraordinary, Elizabeth and the team have a world of people they can call — and an ever-growing understanding of what might be possible.

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Because knowing luxury travel isn't about memorizing a list of five-star hotels. It’s about staying curious enough to keep discovering the places, people and experiences you didn’t know to ask for.

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And then knowing exactly which client will love them.

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