You built a travel experience people love. Now let's build the business around it.
Hey, I'm Mary Alice: American in France, former chief of staff, small business owner, and the person running your travel business's back of house. If you're running culinary retreats, wine trips, or small-group adventures, and the business side is eating you alive, you're in the right place.
I lead marketing, finance and operations strategy for small, independently owned travel businesses. I make the pricing calls, set up the operating systems, and own the marketing campaigns that actually move profitable revenue. You stay focused on the parts only you can do: the hosting, the guest relationships, the trip design.
I run the back of house so you can lead from the front.
A TRAVEL BUSINESS THAT RUNS
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A TRAVEL BUSINESS THAT RUNS —
You fell in love with travel, not spreadsheets.
You got into this because of what travel does to people. The table in Provence. The remote Catalan hike nobody else knows about. The Sicilian kitchen where strangers become friends by the end of the night.
Then you started the business. And somewhere between your first trip and your fiftieth, running it took over your life. More time in spreadsheets than on hiking trails. More time on social media than at candlelit dinners. The business you dreamed of turned out more corporate and less creative than you ever imagined.
You're learning 15 different tools. Figuring out which prompt gets what result. Trying to manage a team that still runs every decision past you. Chasing invoices. And occasionally remembering to email your list or update your website between guest check-ins.
Before you go and beat yourself up, know this: there's a whole second business inside every travel business, and it's one you likely weren't prepared for. I call it the back of house. The marketing, the ops, the finance. Everything running in the background of a beloved travel business to keep it calm, sustainable and profitable.
You're not bad at business. You've just been working both sides of the pass. The front of house is yours, let me take the back.
TRUSTED BY FOUNDERS OF
Whether you’re doing $300K or $2 million a year, the gap looks the same: clients love the experience, you and your team are working incredibly hard, and there’s still too little left in the bank at the end of the month. Problems keep landing back on your plate even after you’ve hired people to take them off it. Most founders who come to me put it the same way: “I’m a creative, not a business person.”
The fix isn’t more ads, a slick agency or burning it all down. It’s the unglamorous fundamentals, done properly and consistently: pricing your trips so they make real money and book out at full capacity, a website and email program that bring in bookings again and again, and a team that knows their role and has the automations to spend their time where it counts, face to face with your clients.
You built the plane while you were flying it. Now it’s time to build the business around it. And with someone laser-focused on it, that happens faster than you’d think.
Your trips are phenomenal. Your bank account should be too.
What changes in 90–180 days
WORK WITH ME
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THE BLUEPRINT | BUSINESS ASSESSMENT
A 30-day deep dive into how your travel business actually runs: pricing, marketing, operations and finance. You walk away knowing exactly what's working, what's quietly costing you, and what to fix first + a detailed 12 month financial forecast.
Best for travel founders who know something's off but can't pinpoint what and are ready to stop guessing and start taking action.
Starting at €3,000 -
BACK OF HOUSE OPERATOR | FRACTIONAL COO
I step in as the operator your business has been missing, leading marketing, finance and operations strategy in focused 90-day implementation sprints. You stay in the founder/ CEO seat while I run the back of house.
Best for founders of travel businesses earning $500k-$2M in revenue with a small team ready to hand off the back of house for good.
Starting at €7,000/month -
FULL HOUSE | MARKETING STRATEGY
A 120-day marketing build for founders launching a new slate of fixed-date retreats or group trips. We build your brand, sales page and email engine, launch to your list, then hand you the keys.
Best for travel founders with a new season of retreats they’d like to launch, proof of concept and a season to sell out.
Starting at €24,000/ 120 days