I’ve put in the work. I’ve worked within four walls. I’ve seen sunrises from my office window. I once woke up from a nap on the carpet beside my office dustbin, having turned contracts overnight working at a leading M&A law firm. Stepping away from that life to build a travel start-up was supposed to be my escape from corporate drudgery. And for a while, it was.
Then the overheads started compounding. Rent on a beautiful office. Salaries for a growing, thriving team. CPF, insurance, the quiet monthly grind of fixed costs that doesn’t care whether you’re having a good month or a bad one. Before long, I was back to eating lunch at my desk and living for the weekend.
There had to be a different way of making a living.
My first baby arrived in 2022, and he was the push I didn’t know I was waiting for. We were still recovering from Covid, and the math of missing his early years to claw back losses simply stopped adding up. So we made a decision that, two years earlier, would have terrified me: we gave up our lovely black-and-white colonial office, converted our entire team into independent contractors, and stepped fully into what the wider trade calls the host agency model.
“The travel industry sells the idea that life is meant to be lived. It is about time more of us in the trade allowed ourselves to live it too.”
In short, a host agency provides the infrastructure – supplier relationships, commission negotiation, accreditation, technology, marketing, branding – while travel advisors operate as independent businesses underneath it. They keep the freedom to work where, when and how they want. The host keeps the lights on and the contracts in good order. Both sides win when the advisor wins.
Answering emails and taking calls at night hits different when you’ve had the chance to pick your son up from school or cared for your health with a Pilates class that afternoon. It also hits different when you’re taking those calls from a villa in Bali, or from the window seat of a Shinkansen pulling out of Kyoto. This is no longer work‑life balance, but work‑life integration.
For my team, the shift has been just as profound. Our advisors are no longer clocking in; they are running their own micro‑businesses with the protection and leverage of a known brand behind them. There is no limit to their earning potential. They take ownership of their client relationships in a way employees rarely can.
None of this is to romanticise the leap. Going independent is not for every advisor, and running a host agency is not for every agency owner. You trade certainty for autonomy, fixed cost for variable cost, and the comfort of a team in one room for the self-starting abilities of a team in a multitude of time zones. It takes courage on both sides of the relationship, and an unusual amount of trust.
But I wish I had known then what I know now: that a career is not a linear path, and the world of work does not need to fit neatly inside a box built by those that came before us. I would have spared myself a lot of jitters, a lot of nerves, and quite a few overnights on a law‑firm floor.
The travel industry, of all industries, sells the idea that life is meant to be lived. It is about time more of us in the trade allowed ourselves to live it too.
A former lawyer, Krystal Tan is the cofounder & director of Blue Sky Escapes, a boutique luxury and experiential travel company based in Singapore.
This article was first published in Travel Weekly Asia’s April-June 2026 issue. Click here to read more from this issue.