Travel Again Advisory had decades of deal experience and one of the best-connected networks in travel. In 2026 the market finally saw it: active client engagements up 200% in seven months, and new business arriving straight through the website.
Overview
Travel Again Advisory is a travel-industry M&A and strategic advisory firm led by Managing Partner Mike McCormick and partner Ed Silver, backed by a board of advisors with deep roots across the industry. Its partners have run travel companies, advised blue-chip brands, and closed deals the rest of the industry reads about. The firm had also built a well-known industry podcast. That podcast became the problem. When a founder looked Travel Again up, they found a media brand. Rockstarr & Moon partnered with the firm in July 2025 to put the advisory practice at the center of how travel sees it.
The Challenge
Expertise the Market Couldn't See
Advisory work in travel runs on trust and timing. A company rarely goes looking for an advisor until something forces the question: a founder ready to exit after 20 years, a funding round that stalls, a buyer who calls out of nowhere. When that moment comes, the owner calls whoever is top of mind. Travel Again needed to be that name.
The firm's own website worked against it. The homepage led with the podcast, the speaking, and industry advocacy. The advisory practice sat behind a couple of links. On our first call, Mike named it himself: "We're not putting front and center the thing that we actually make money doing."
Search told the same story. Years of episodes and articles lived on a platform search engines barely indexed, so the firm ranked for its own name and little else. Client NDAs kept the partners from showing the work that proved what they could do. The partners also saw a perception risk: an audience that knew Travel Again's voice might not know Travel Again was open for business.
Most advisory firms accept all of this as the cost of the business, and Travel Again's partners did too. On that same first call, Ed Silver put it plainly: "People don't buy from the internet." Nobody hires an M&A advisor off a Google search. Travel Again was about to prove that wrong.
The Impact
Key Wins at a Glance
From the Mic to the Deal Table
The Solution: Reposition, Amplify, Stay in the Room
Travel Again brought the expertise, the network, and the opinions. We built the system that put them in front of the right buyers every week.
Repositioned the Firm Around the Advisory Work
Before anyone touched a page, both partners marked up an ideal client profile. That document set the direction for everything after it. The homepage now opens on advisory. The podcast got its own home. As the firm's work expanded from transactions into strategy and turnarounds, the messaging expanded with it.
Built a Site That Speaks the Buyer's Language
We rebuilt the site twice: first off Wix so search engines could read it, then onto fast HTML built for Google and for AI answer engines. Years of podcast episodes and articles became search pages. A Board of Advisors section shows buyers the depth of the bench behind every engagement. Ed's verdict on the final build: "super fast."
Turned the Firm's Point of View into a Weekly Presence
Travel Again's partners write the way they talk: grounded, specific, and unsensational. We gave that voice a schedule across LinkedIn, a newsletter, and a bi-weekly email, and every strong post goes back to the website to keep working. Ed had doubts about the newsletter at first. By the end of September 2025 it had reached more than 10,500 LinkedIn members. "I thought it would be brand negative," he told us, "but here we are."
When American Express Global Business Travel announced it was going private, Mike saw the news on the wire before anyone had written about it. "It was like game on," he said. He posted his analysis within 20 minutes. It drew 15,000 hits, and American Express's own leadership team liked it. The introductions that followed are still turning into conversations.
Gave the Firm a Stage of Its Own
When long-form episodes slowed, we built Jump Seat Conversations with the partners: five minutes for a travel founder to put their company on the table, with no deck and no judges. Mike hosts. Ed produces. Travel Again sits at the center of travel innovation, and founders have a reason to find the firm.
Kept the Firm in the Room
Before the GBTA convention, we set the team up to scan business cards straight into the CRM. We route journalist requests to the firm, and those pitches have landed coverage, including a TravelPulse feature in August 2026. We pushed back when it mattered, too. We wanted more outreach. The partners wanted a pace that fit a full client load. We settled on one consistent message and a cadence the firm sticks to.
The Results
The Network Lit Up
The first proof came in February 2026. A founder who had tried to sell her company on her own went searching for help online, landed on Travel Again's website, and hired the firm. "Clearly, it spoke a language in terms of what she was looking for," Mike said.
On that same call, Ed turned to his partner: "This might be a case, Mike, where we let go a little bit of our instincts and just let Rachel guide it. Sort of like the 'no one's ever going to Google for us and buy from us on the website.'"
In May it happened again. A qualified buyer for one of the firm's live deals came in through the website and went straight to a finance call. Two wins from the one channel the partners were sure would never produce advisory work.
At GBTA in August, industry leaders walked up, unprompted. "People are like, 'Oh, I listen to your stuff all the time,'" Mike said. A hallway conversation with a travel agency founder turned a one-hour meeting into four. The firm came home with four proposals out.
By September, active client engagements were up 200% since February, with another agreement about to sign. The work now spans M&A, strategy, and turnarounds across segments of travel that don't compete with each other, and it carries the firm through the first quarter of 2027.
Before and After
From Podcast Hosts to the Advisory Firm Travel Calls
Before
- The website introduced a podcast; the advisory practice sat behind two links
- The firm ranked for its own name and little else
- Client NDAs hid the proof of what the partners could do
- New business depended on who happened to remember the firm
- Great commentary with no system to put it in front of buyers
After
- The website introduces an advisory firm and the outcomes it delivers
- Organic search visits up more than 1,000%, with clients finding the firm on Google
- A weekly founder series, newsletter, and email that show the firm's thinking without breaking a single NDA
- Industry leaders tell the partners they read their work
- Active client engagements up 200%, and a calendar booked through Q1 2027
Why It Matters
The Bigger Win
The partners still win every deal themselves. What changed is how often Travel Again reaches a founder before their trigger hits, and what that founder finds when they look the firm up.
Mike calls it "the network activating and lighting up." Buyers who search for Travel Again now find a working advisory firm with a strong point of view, a deep bench, and a platform the industry pays attention to. In Mike's words, "A lot of what this will end up being is just validation."
"Rachel and the Rockstarr & Moon team have been an excellent resource for our firm. Their work has exceeded our expectations and we highly recommend them!"
Mike McCormick, Managing Partner, Travel Again Advisory
What This Means for You
If your firm lives on referrals, your best work sits under NDA, and your website talks about everything else, you're invisible at the exact moment a buyer goes looking. Travel Again Advisory is proof that the right client will find you, and hire you, once your market can see what you do.