Karell's African Dream Vacations

Norman Pieters named to Travel + Leisure's 2008 A-List of Travel Experts

New York, NY (August 19, 2008) – Scoring a hard-to-get reservation. Searching out an undiscovered hotel. Planning the ultimate getaway. A great travel agent can help clients solve their biggest travel quandaries. To give readers access to the finest specialists in the field, Travel + Leisure presents its seventh annual A-List of 128 Top Travel Experts as selected by T+L editors, who interviewed hundreds of candidates for this highly-selective guide.

This list organizes the agents by area of specialization, and provides their favorite finds and client exclusives. For the complete 2008 A-List, visit www.travelandleisure.com or pick up Travel + Leisure’s September issue on newsstands now.

T+L also surveyed the agents to get their insights on travel habits and preferences. Here are highlights:
•    In this year’s survey of A-List agents, more than a third of those polled revealed that their clients spend at least $7,000 per trip.
•    When it comes to securing a flight upgrade, American Airlines was cited by more than one-third of A-List agents as the most accommodating domestic carrier.
•    More than half of the A-List agents surveyed reported that they are seeing an interest in travel to the Middle East.

Travel + Leisure Editor-in-Chief Nancy Novogrod said, “Because travelers today have hundreds of options at their fingertips, using a great travel agent is more important than ever. To point the way to the best vacations, whether in the South Seas or the Indian Ocean, Paris or Las Vegas, we offer our annual A-list Guide of Top Travel Experts.”