These days, the majority of tour conductors come from other endeavors. For many, tour management is a second or even third career. This was the case with Linda Cunningham, who for the fifteen year had worked as a nurse. "I guess I was going through a mid-life crisis," she admits "I felt I was getting burned out and needed to do something different with the second half of my life." Nursing requires people skills and so does travel. "Dealing with people, helping solve their needs has always been a joy to me," explains Linda. "I wanted to find a new field where I could provide the same things I had provided in nursing: comfort and happiness. Travel seemed to be a promising and exciting option. I would be doing the very same thing for people, but in a different context."

Linda first signed up with a $495, "You too can be a travel agent" company, the kind that the industry calls a "card mill." "I soon found out that it was mostly a supplier of travel agents ID cards that supposedly provided travel perks. It wasn't about careers. I wanted a career. The perks could come later." She fortunately found out about a travel school near home. "I took my first course, " she explains, " and I knew this was the real thing."

At first Linda didn't know what sector of the travel business would best profit from her skills. After taking several courses, she narrowed her interest to two areas: cruises and group. She quickly realized that the two could be merged. My husband thought I was crazy to go into this, that there was no money in the travel business, but I was hooked."

Linda quickly proved to herself and to everyone else that there was indeed money in putting together cruise groups. She focused her efforts on people who had never been on a cruise. "One of the reasons people don't cruise," says Linda, "is that they're worried about committing to an entirely new experience. But they feel 'safer' as part of a group of other people who, like them, are taking a 'chance' on a new travel experience." Her first effort was an immediate success: sixty people signed up for a three-day Baja cruise. "That motivated me to learn even more about promoting cruises," states Linda. "I began to attend industry seminars and to read everything I could get my hands on."Since then, Linda has refined her group-making skills. She convinced a church group of 170 to cruise and made their minister her "pied piper." She currently is working an event more novel concept: a cruise for twins. "A local radio promos are great way to spread the word on this unusual group departure."

Of course, Linda escorts every cruise group herself. "It's so easy to manage a group cruise departure," she says. "The staff onboard and the structure of a cruise departure make my task simple. The unexpected rarely happens and when it dose, there are plenty of people the help me. Plus, it's so fantastic to see a first-time cruiser when they first set foot on a ship. They're awed by the ship's size and food. It helps me relive that first time I went on a cruise."