Joined in January 2024
Wedding planner
Based in Seattle, WashingtonFrom wedding planner to full-time travel advisor
Alicia Anderson Pieri spent years in the travel and events industry before discovering how to combine both worlds. After working in hotel catering sales and at Expedia, she transitioned to wedding planning in Seattle. Throughout her wedding planning career, couples constantly asked her for advice about group bookings for their weddings—help she was providing for free.
“People asked me for advice about group bookings for weddings a lot,” she said. “I was giving free advice and help, then a couple of years ago I was figuring out what to do next career-wise and realized I could monetize what I’m already doing for free.”
Alicia joined Fora in January 2024 with a clear plan: use wedding planning as a bridge to build her travel advisory business, then transition fully. She stopped taking new wedding planning clients at the end of 2024 and completed her last wedding in September 2025. By mid-2025, her travel business had grown enough to support her full-time, allowing her to leave wedding planning behind while maintaining the valuable industry relationships she had built.
Building a referral network with wedding planners
Rather than abandoning her wedding industry connections, Alicia transformed them into her primary business development channel. She built strategic referral relationships with Seattle wedding planners, who now send her both wedding room blocks and honeymoon clients.
The synergy works because most wedding planners have no travel expertise and don’t consider monetizing it. They’re happy to refer a service that doesn’t compete with their core business. Contract management for room blocks is time-consuming, and planners prefer to focus on what they do best—planning the wedding itself.
“We’re not competing with them in any way. It’s an add-on service, so they’re happy to refer that service out,” Alicia explained.
From a client perspective, couples who already work with a wedding planner understand the value of professional guidance. The service model translates naturally from event planning to travel advising.
I was giving free advice and help, then a couple of years ago I was figuring out what to do next career-wise and realized I could monetize what I’m already doing.
Alicia Anderson
joined January 2024
“If you have a wedding planner or a day-of coordinator, you’re still really involved in your wedding planning, but you have someone to help you guide you,” she said. “Having a travel advisor is very similar.”
Alicia focuses specifically on local Seattle wedding room blocks rather than destination weddings, which allows her to leverage deep market knowledge. She knows which hotels offer courtesy blocks, what terms couples can expect, which dates are peak season, and what rates are fair. She understands the neighborhoods, knows which hotels are close to which venues, and has established trust with local suppliers through years of bringing them business.
Her typical client journey starts with a wedding room block, then converts to honeymoon planning once couples see the value she provides. This upsell is straightforward because she’s already demonstrated her expertise and saved them time during the stressful wedding planning process.
Using Fora’s training and tools to expand beyond local expertise
While Alicia had strong knowledge of the Seattle hotel market from her Expedia days, honeymoon clients wanted to travel far beyond what she’d personally experienced. Fora’s training library became crucial for expanding her destination expertise quickly.
“I only knew about destinations I’d been to,” she said. “Being able to leverage Fora training to expand my knowledge outside of places that I’d personally been to and bring that to clients quickly was super advantageous.”
She credits Fora’s training quality with helping her feel confident booking destinations across Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean that she’d never visited. When clients request unfamiliar territories—like an Oceania cruise to Alaska or an African safari—she watches training videos in Portal to gather enough information for an informed initial consultation.
Alicia used Fora’s vast training library to learn about new destinations
Fora offers 800+ on-demand lessons, plus 25 live weekly sessions to keep advisors up to date on the latest destination and supplier intel.
Fora’s business setup process also proved valuable. Getting access to an IATA number quickly meant she could immediately monetize the knowledge and skills she already possessed. Having come from a tech background, she was impressed that Fora’s training and systems were more robust than an eight-year-old startup she’d previously worked at, despite Fora being only a few years old at the time.
“I signed up with Fora and had an IATA number that I could use to produce a group booking contract right away,” she said. “Being able to monetize this knowledge and skills that I already have was such a big advantage.”
Portal serves as her competitive analysis tool even for offline group bookings. When working on group contracts, she checks Portal first to see rates at top properties over her clients’ dates, giving her quick market intelligence to share with couples.
How Fora made success possible
Comprehensive training: Destination and supplier trainings enable advisors to confidently book unfamiliar locations and expand beyond personal travel experience.
Quick business setup: Fast IATA number access allows immediate monetization of existing industry knowledge and relationships.
Portal for market intelligence: Rate comparison tools provide competitive analysis even for offline group bookings.
Community connections: Familiarization trips and events like Live Forum and Virtuoso Travel Week create lasting peer relationships and business partnerships.
