Erina Pindar - Ideation and Recommendation

The final episode of Series 2 broke the mould before we change things up again for Series 3 that's coming in September. 

Erina Pindar, COO and Managing Partner of SmartFlyer, became our first international guest, our first live in-person podcast held at a luxury hotel, and the first guest who hijacked our Offloaded section with an Offload of her very own.

Erina joined SmartFlyer when there were just 6 travel advisors connected to the brand. Celebrating it's 10th anniversay in 2025, the numbers are currently at 250 across the US and Europe with another 35 here in Australia.

We asked how Erina glues an international network together and what Australian advisors can learn from their international counterparts. She also spoke about 'recommendation culture' and the tightrope a modern advisor has to dance between recommending everything on social media versus holding some of that back to avoid contributing to overtourism and the possible saturation of those cute, secret little finds that give advisors their value in the first place. 

If that topic isn't fascincating enough Erina also talked about the increasing trend of putting clients on a retainer, an entirely new concept to at least one of our hosts.
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The winner of the Numinous Moments competition that includes 3 Nights in the Maldives at JOALI BEING for two people with half-board and return seaplane transfers was announced during this episode as Sarah Webster of Wayfinder Travel, with this entry!

Our enormous congrats to Sarah as we put claims in to be her plus-one. Pick me! Pick me!

We must also make honourable mentions of three terrific runner-up entries from Deanne Scanlan with this one, Peta Godfrey with this one and another from Emily Sonley who entered with an email that we read out during the episode. 

Charlie Trevena's new and exciting Travel Agent Takeaways podcast was mentioned, and is an instant contender for the second-best podcast in our industry. You can find that here, and there's links to subscribe on your favourite podcast platform on that page.
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A heartfelt thanks to our series sponsor Numinous Luxury Travel Representation for their support and encouragement, without which this series would never have happened. More info on Numinous is available at https://www.numinousltr.com/

And we've been exceptionally proud to partner with the iconic Hong Kong Tourism Board to raise awareness of the magic of Hong Kong during the series that has included hidden treasures that you'll never have heard about. Their website is here: https://www.discoverhongkong.com/anz/index.html

Finally our sincere thanks to all the guests who've appeared in Series 2, the organisations who've appeared as Sales Calls, our stand-in hosts Nicola Strudwick and Sonia Jones, our marketing team of Lisa Maroun and Anya Vokhmyakova, our editor Chris Finesa......and most of all to you, our listeners xx

You're all on a retainer for Series 3.
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Social Details

Follow Erina Pindar, Managing Partner and COO at SmartFlyer, here on LinkedIn and here on Instagram. The Insta is pretty cool - just saying.