Some careers have unpredictable trajectories. Journalism is one of them. Young reporters usually have little say about what topics they’ll write about. That’s why Canadian Travel Hall of Fame inductee Jill Wykes laughs when asked if she had planned on a career in travel.

“Not at all,” she says. “In my 20s I was editor of an equestrian magazine. It was really interesting, but I needed a change, so I got a job at Maclean Hunter. The only opening was at a magazine called Construction Today Middle East. I did that for a year.”

A staff writer position came up at a trade publication called Travel Courier, then owned by Maclean Hunter. Wykes took the job, recognizing that there was the potential for some attractive perquisites. “Within a month I was in the Galapagos Islands. I was hooked.”

Later, Paul Vickers recruited Wykes as an editor for TravelWeek Bulletin. After several years there, her knowledge of the industry, strong contacts and excellent communication skills led to her being named as the first Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Tour Operators.

That was where Sunquest founder Patrick Brigham got to know Wykes, and recruited her to handle PR for his fast-growing tour operation. She went on to hold various executive roles in the company through its many mergers and acquisitions, including Communications, Sales, Customer & Destination Services and HR at Thomas Cook under Michael Friisdahl.

But wait a minute. Don’t things like customer service and human resources require specialized training? “Normally, yes,” says Wykes. “But I think I was just given the jobs that nobody else wanted.”

What makes Wykes exceptional is that she took on the roles with equanimity, and performed them well, relying heavily on “great teams” of people.

“When I was asked to become head of sales, my response was ‘Me?’ But in the end I really enjoyed it. I loved developing relationships and I had a great team of people who knew what they were doing.”

The modest Wykes says she’s somewhat embarrassed to receive the Canadian Travel Hall of Fame honour, saying “I was just doing my job.” But as her career progressed, Wykes increasingly took on industry volunteer positions outside of her corporate roles, and played a role in shaping the future of an emerging industry.

She was a member of OTISM – the Ontario Travel Industry Self-Management Corporation, the committee that designed the Travel Industry Council of Ontario (TICO) before it officially became a delegated authority. She then went on to be a three-time Chairman of the TICO board.

Wykes says the industry wanted to manage itself, with limited government regulation, but that wasn’t to be.

“In the end, our hands were totally tied. We thought we’d get self-management, but that’s not what happened. But we then looked at our role as to mitigate the ever-growing arm of regulation and make sure that it didn’t impede with our ability to do business. If I made a contribution, it was more in that area, which was like a whole other life outside my job.”

With all the varied roles she held in tour operations, public relations was always a constant for Wykes. Again, that’s likely partially because no one else wanted to take on the sometimes thorny role, but also because she’s so damn good at it.

“I never got rid of PR. Through every job, I was still responsible for high-level PR strategy, pretty much up to my last day.”

Wykes retired from Thomas Cook North America in 2011. But she didn’t really retire, operating her own communications consulting company ever since, with the travel industry as a specialty. A self-proclaimed ‘snowbird’ with a winter home in Florida, Wykes is also editor of SnowbirdAdvisor.ca , an online resource for Canadian snowbirds, which she calls a “labour of love.”

"Communications is critical in any industry, and Jill is a consummate communicator," says John Kirk, TravelPulse Canada founder and creator of the Canadian Travel Hall of Fame. "Not only did she guide important companies through difficult situations, she also made a major contribution through her tireless work representing the interests of the industry through organizations like CATO and TICO."

As the travel industry begins to recover from the worst crisis in its industry, Wykes mused about past crises – and there have been many.

“In this industry you’re vulnerable to everything,” Wykes says, listing the 9/11 terror attacks, an alphabet soup of hurricanes, industry collapses like Canada 3000, swine flu, politicial events…the list goes on.

Despite the pain of those catastrophes, Wykes remembers the adrenaline rush of staff coming together as a team to assist customers, deal with the media and adjust operations to cope with the crisis of the day.

“I was in charge of an emergency response team, a really good team. Those were not happy events, but they were challenging and exciting.”

In terms of overall impact, nothing experienced before has been as challenging for the travel industry as the last two years of pandemic. Wykes laments the number of skilled people who have “disappeared” from the business, and the billions of dollars in debt weighing down balance sheets.

“I think the industry is going to face challenges. But I’m pleased to see people are desperate to travel again. And I think there will be a huge boom in travel.”