Check-in Podcast by TMR

Episode 1: Checking-in with Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg

When you and your family have built careers, and a major luxury agency, in the travel industry, how do you react when the world is shut down and borders are closed seemingly overnight?

In this conversation, Jennifer-Wilson Buttigieg, the co-president and owner of Valerie Wilson Travel in New York City, talks about her experience over the last 12 months and whether or not she ever felt the urge to get out of the industry, especially as business went down more than 90% during last year.

Jennifer talks about how her family went from Iowa to London and then to New York City, all the while been driven by “the travel bug” that has drawn so many into the industry.

Introducing Check-In Podcast

In 2019, at the height of the industry’s surge pre-COVID,  the travel industry accounted for $8.9 trillion in contribution to the world’s GDP annually (more than 10% of the global GDP), along with 330 million jobs, or 1 in 10 jobs around the world. Its impact touched all corners of the global economy, connecting people from all corners of the world with friends, family, colleagues, cities, and countries that they would otherwise have no connection to. 

While the industry could lose more than 100 million of those jobs because of COVID, it is important now, more than ever, to remember the faces and names behind those numbers, the ones who worked to build, and will now have to work to rebuild, the industry. Those individuals are the subject of TMR’s new Check-In Podcast, an informal look into the lives of the people making travel dreams come true, the ones working inside and outside of the travel trade to move things forward for those 300 million people or so working inside the industry. 

Episodes, released every two weeks, are available on all major streaming platforms.