The Travel Institute announces AAA – The Auto Club Group (ACG) as the 2025 recipient of its prestigious Educational Excellence Award. Established in 2022, this annual award celebrates organizations and individuals who demonstrate an unwavering commitment to quality education for travel advisors and invest meaningfully in ensuring its delivery.
The recognition underscores The Travel Institute’s constant quest to elevate education across the travel industry. For more than 60 years, the non-profit education leader has worked tirelessly with partners who share the same passion: raising the bar for professional standards, creating consistent pathways for advisor development and ensuring travelers benefit from knowledgeable, trusted experts.
“Our mission is, and always has been, advisor success,” said Diane Petras, CTIE, president of The Travel Institute. “Our Educational Excellence Award shines a light on those organizations that understand and pursue educational excellence in support of success for advisors, their organizations, our industry, and the travelers we all serve.”
This year’s honoree, ACG, becomes the fourth organization recognized for advancing educational excellence in the travel industry. Previous winners include Travel Leaders Network’s Lea Diele, CTIE (2024); Canada’s The Travel Agent Next Door (2023); and AAA’s Auto Club Enterprises (ACE), which received the inaugural award in 2022. Together, these winners exemplify the transformative power of investing in professional growth.
Elevating Standards in a Changing Industry
Recent research validates the connection between education and advisor success. Two industry surveys from The Travel Institute—the 2023 Changing Face of Travel Agents and the 2025 CTA Graduate Insights—highlight the strong correlation between training and improved outcomes for both advisors and their clients. Additional studies across the industry confirm the same: education drives confidence, professionalism, and customer satisfaction.
This is particularly significant given the influx of new talent entering the travel advisor profession in recent years. With so many disparate training options available, ensuring consistency, quality, and rigor in advisor education is more critical than ever. Programs like the Gold Award Winning TRIPKIT—The Travel Institute’s gold-standard entry-level training—ensure new advisors have a solid, consistent foundation from day one. The Educational Excellence Award plays an important role in addressing this challenge by elevating organizations and leaders who set the highest standard, inspiring others to follow.
A Shared Commitment to Advisor Success
By recognizing ACG, The Travel Institute not only celebrates one organization’s achievements but also reinforces the importance of collaboration across the travel industry. The award highlights how collective efforts from associations, consortia, host agencies, and other partners can elevate the entire advisor community. It sends a clear message: education is not optional—it is essential for sustaining the professionalism and credibility of the industry as a whole.
