Wow, what an ending to a conference.

More agents, more suppliers, more overall sales and commissions, more speakers in attendance - the 2023 TTAND Conference held last week at the Majestic Elegance Costa Mujeres went above and beyond, with many agents and suppliers we spoke with calling it "the best one yet." (more on that to follow this week.)

It was definitely the most exciting closing session TTAND has held to date; all week anticipation was growing about the location of next year’s conference, which President and Founder Flemming Friisdahl would only tease as “epic”. And then there was the incredibly profound, inspiring and funny keynote speaker, Tareq Hadhad, founder of Peace by Chocolate. His words spoke to the theme of this year's conference, "Breaking Barriers Together," which involves getting out of your comfort zone to attain success.

“I realized that no matter what you want in life, sense of fulfillment, happiness, success; all of that is on the other side to comfort. It’s all in the learning process,” explained Hadhad. “We were all newcomers to experiences, newcomers to relationships, newcomers to careers - all newcomers to new things.

No matter what we do, what's the worst that can happen? We might need to build things again. And we're going to anyway. We’re going to gain from them a life. They're going to be new experiences.”

The 2024 TTAND conference will be held in Jordan, the first time a Canadian conference of this kind has been held overseas. To say the crowd was excited could be the understatement of the year as Visit Jordan and G Adventures took to the stage with Friisdahl to give details of the trip amid cheers. In a video message, G Adventures Founder Bruce Poon Tip joked he had to "be a host to get invited" and it was also announced he will be a keynote speaker.

The energy after the closing session helped fuel the lunch and party on the beach that afternoon. Then it was time for the awards, which featured a special performance from Golden-Buzzer winning America’s Got Talent star, Roberta Battaglia.

“This morning, we had an amazing session,” Lisa Pierce, Vice President Global Sales & Air Canada Vacations told the crowd before introducing Battaglia. ”One of the key takeaways that we, all learned, and I'm sure we already knew, but we really heard in a profound way is that people are at the core of everything we do.”

Without further ado, here are the 2022 TTAND Award winners: