Business Class by Learn Tourism | Episode with Carylann Assante, CEO of SYTA and the SYTA Youth Foundation
Picture a station wagon in the 1960s. Three kids are in the back, leaning on a cooler, flipping through a AAA trip book to follow their route on the map. Up front, a stay-at-home mom who spent all year quietly saving for this moment.
That's Carylann Assante's first travel memory. "She would save our pennies all year long," Carylann told me. "My mom absolutely believed that we needed to travel as a family, and would forgo a lot of things throughout the year so that we would have this one big experience each year."
Carylann has led SYTA, the Student & Youth Travel Association, and the SYTA Youth Foundation for more than 15 years. The foundation's mission is simple: "We believe travel changes young lives for good." I'm a believer too. I was the kid who got to travel on a scholarship, and it made all the difference. Carylann and I have known each other for almost 15 years, so this conversation felt like catching up with a friend who also happens to be one of the sharpest association leaders I know.
Here are the ideas that stayed with me.
Carylann says those family road trips taught her two things.
The first was connection. On the road, her dad wasn't working long hours and her mom wasn't cleaning the house. "You're forced to be together to communicate, to learn to play together, to fight together on the road." Those trips became the memories her family still laughs about, even after everyone grew up and moved apart.
The second was courage. "My mom wanted us not to be afraid of learning something new or being someplace new." So the kids learned to read a map, watch for signs, check license plates, check into a hotel, and make friends with other kids at the pool. Carylann says that lesson has guided her through her whole life and career.
It also explains how she answers a question every frequent traveler hears. "I don't have a favorite place. I have a favorite experience that I might have had in one of the places I've traveled." (Her example: her very first stop at Buc-ee's, on a drive from San Antonio to Houston that was otherwise, in her words, "flat and ugly.")
Reflect: Think about the trip that shaped you most. Was it the destination, or something that happened along the way? What does that tell you about what your visitors will actually remember?
This was the idea I keep coming back to. We spend a lot of time talking about the big trip: the flight overseas, the bucket-list destination. But Carylann has found that the small, close-to-home trip matters just as much.
"The trip that the family takes together two hours away to a location, or the kids travel to their nation's capital three hours away, those experiences are just as important as the big trip."
Travel can be expensive, and families have plenty of reasons to stay home. But, as she put it, "every experience is a step towards that big trip." An hour's drive still counts. "That's still an experience outside your neighborhood."
For destinations, that's a real opportunity. The school group or family coming from a few hours away may be taking its first trip together, and that first trip is when a lifelong traveler is born.
Try this: Look at the groups and families within a three-hour drive of your destination. What would make a first-time trip here feel easy and welcoming? Pick one thing to make simpler, like a clearer itinerary for school groups, a family-friendly half-day plan, or a frontline team briefed to treat first-timers like VIPs.
Carylann has spent most of her career in association management, so I asked what's changed in the 15 years we've known each other.
She started with what hasn't. An association is still "a community of people coming together for a cause or a reason, and it really is the place and the forum for that to happen." People still want to gather in person; if anything, the pandemic proved it. "We had virtual meetings a lot during the pandemic, but what came out of that was a need to meet in person." And engaged members still want to give back, "to celebrate either their profession or their cause."
What has changed is how members engage: communication, technology, services, world events. She's seen plenty of predicted extinctions come and go. "Then we had the internet, which was supposed to wipe us out, and that didn't wipe us out. We just kept going. Now we have AI, but there's still always going to be a need for the experts and the professionals and the authentic voices in that field."
Her bottom line: "There are more associations than ever."
I told Carylann about a recent session I taught on AI. About three minutes in, I realized the most valuable thing in the room would be people learning how other people in the room were using AI. They might be competitors, but they share the same mission.
She agreed, and added a pattern she's seen across every kind of community. "Maybe 10 to 20% of the community is actively engaged," whether that's a church, the PTA, or an association. "A lot of our goal is to move a few more people up into that top 20%."
Peer-to-peer learning is one of the best ways to do that, she said, because it lowers the bar to contributing. "If I'm an introvert, I can still share my experience without being on the stage."
Carylann knows that from the inside. "I'm an introvert, but I've always been in jobs where I have to be an extrovert." Her secret for drawing people in isn't louder outreach. It's better questions. "Asking the right questions and listening, and truly listening, is helping me better understand the person that I'm talking with."
Try this: At your next team meeting, partner training, or member event, swap one presentation for a structured peer share. Give everyone a single prompt (for example, "What's one thing that worked for you this season?") and a few minutes in small groups. Notice who speaks up who usually doesn't.
Carylann turned the question around on me, so we both talked about our "why." Hers: "My why really is about contributing. When I am contributing in some way, that is when I am most happy." She's made peace with not being the most dominant leader in the room, because "I can actually lead by being a great contributor."
Mine is learning, which is why I describe Learn Tourism's culture as a learning culture. I've never hired someone just because we had an opening. I hire people who love to learn, because you can't teach that.
Carylann added something I thought was wise: she's learned "not to assume that everyone thinks the way I do and understands how I communicate," especially as a new generation enters the workforce having learned in very different environments.
Her most important mentor was the late John Graham, longtime CEO of ASAE. What she admired was that "he was able to lead not having to be the face and the most important person in the room." He built teams, gave them clear roles, and let them lead. But he also taught her the other half of leadership. "It's okay to be the one who makes the decision. That's why you're in this role." And: "May not be right, but you have to make it."
So what would Carylann most like to pass on to her own team? The understanding that pushback "is not personal." There will be a lot of voices and opinions in any room. Even when you know you're right, "to lead you're going to have to give time for all the voices in the room, not take it personally, and be able to listen and come back with a strategy to achieve your goal and bring others along." She noted that's even harder with remote teams, who don't see that work happening day to day.
Reflect: Is there a decision you've been holding off on because you're waiting for everyone to agree? What would it look like to hear every voice, and then make the call?
When I asked whether there was anything I hadn't asked, Carylann handed me two big questions. I'm passing them along to you.
Who gets to travel? Student travel, and many tourism and hospitality programs, are built around a path to a four-year university. Sports teams and music students travel. But "travel programs are not really built into" technical schools and community colleges, and two-year programs rarely offer study abroad. Carylann has been learning about organizations that train future plumbers, barbers, and electricians, and she's asking: "How can we connect these students with those experiences and that opportunity to travel if they have gone down a different path for school?" And she was clear this isn't about gap years: "A gap year infers that you're going on to a four-year school."
How does travel show up on a resume? Many young people who travel, study abroad, or spend a couple of years as a tour director or chaperone "are having a hard time articulating that value to a future employer." And as hiring moves to online applications and AI screening, "none of the questions are asking, 'Have you ever traveled, studied abroad? What's your global experience?'" Her challenge: "How do we help convert that employee who's taken that experience and that time into a tangible skill?"
I wrote that one down on actual paper, which for me is a big deal. Stay tuned for a future post on how to put your travel experience to work on your resume.
Try this: If you hire frontline staff, add one question to your next job posting or interview guide: "Tell us about a time travel taught you something." Then listen for the skills behind the story, like adaptability, problem solving, curiosity, and comfort with people who are different from you.
Carylann's closing advice works for anyone, whether you have kids in school or not. "Ask your kids' school why they're not traveling." Or visit a school and find out. "Why aren't the kids in your community traveling, and how you can get more involved in ensuring that young people have those opportunities."
That brings it full circle to the station wagon. Someone believed a trip was worth saving for, and it shaped a life and a career.
So here's my question for you: Who in your community hasn't taken that first trip yet, and what's one thing you could do to help them take it?
Listen to the full conversation with Carylann Assante on Business Class by Learn Tourism: [EPISODE LINK]. Learn more about SYTA and the SYTA Youth Foundation at syta.org, or email info@syta.org.
Business Class is a podcast by Learn Tourism, featuring conversations with destination and tourism leaders from around the industry. Learn more at learntourism.org.