What should a travel advisor ask on a client intake form?

An intake form is not paperwork, even though most advisors treat it that way and slap together a generic Google Form because it feels like a formality before the real work starts. It is the very first thing a prospective client experiences of how you actually operate, and it quietly decides whether your first call becomes a discovery interview where you're fishing for basic facts, or a proposal conversation where you already sound like someone who's done this a hundred times. A twenty-question form that asks for passport numbers before you've even discussed a destination feels like a mortgage application. A short, well-chosen one feels like a professional who respects their time and already knows what to ask.

The instinct to ask for everything up front comes from a reasonable place — you don't want to get on a call underprepared. But the cost of that instinct is real: every additional required field is a chance for someone who found you on Instagram twenty minutes ago to close the tab instead of finishing. Completion rates fall off a cliff after question eight or nine, especially on a phone screen, which is where most of these forms actually get opened. The goal isn't to gather every fact you'll eventually need. It's to gather the handful of facts that let you sound like you already understand her before the call even starts.

The twelve questions actually worth asking

1. Name (first name is enough to start).
2. Best way to reach you — and let them choose: email, text, Instagram, WhatsApp.
3. Where are you thinking of going? Open text, no dropdown. Their phrasing is data.
4. Rough dates, and how flexible are they? Flexibility is often worth more than budget.
5. Who's traveling with you? Names, ages if children, and relationships.
6. What's your comfortable per-person range for this trip, excluding flights? Offer tiers, not a blank box.
7. What's the best trip you've ever taken, and what made it good?
8. What do you never want to do again on a vacation?
9. Pace: full days and lots of moving, or one place and slow mornings?
10. Any celebrations attached to this trip?
11. Dietary needs, mobility considerations, or anything I should plan around?
12. What are you hoping this trip feels like? Open text — this is the answer you'll quote back in your proposal.

Notice that most of those questions aren't logistical. They're designed to surface how someone talks about travel, which is the exact language you'll want to mirror back in a proposal three days later. When a client writes "I just want to feel like I disappeared for a week," that phrase belongs in your opening email, verbatim, because it proves you actually read what she wrote instead of running a template. That's the entire difference between a proposal that feels personal and one that feels copy-pasted from the last inquiry you answered.

Why email and phone should almost never be required

A lead who found you on Instagram twenty minutes ago may genuinely not want to hand a phone number to someone she's exchanged three DMs with, and forcing that field is one of the most common reasons intake forms get abandoned halfway through. Let people reply through the channel where they already feel comfortable, whether that's WhatsApp, Instagram, or plain email, and the trust required to eventually hand over a phone number will show up naturally once you've given a genuinely useful answer first. Require the name and exactly one contact method of their choosing, and let everything else stay optional — most people fill it in anyway once they're a few questions deep and already invested in finishing.

How to ask about budget without watching them bail

Never ask "what's your budget?" as a blank text field, because clients either lowball defensively, assuming you'll pad whatever number they give, or they genuinely have no idea what to guess and freeze up entirely. Offer bands instead, framed per-person and land-only: comfortable, elevated, premium, no ceiling. Bands give people permission to simply pick a lane rather than justify a number to a stranger, and they give you the tier you actually need to shortlist suppliers before the call even happens, which saves both of you time on that first conversation.

Follow that with one more question that does the real work: "is there a number you'd rather not go above?" That's the actual constraint you're planning around, and it tends to surface information the tier question alone never would.

Turning form answers into something you'll actually use

Raw form answers are close to useless if they sit unread in an inbox notification you swipe away between calls, which is exactly what happens with most generic form tools. The value only shows up once those answers become a contact record you can actually filter by budget tier, travel companions, circle, and dealbreakers. When intake answers land directly in Contacts, they append straight to the notes field, so six months later, when she messages again about a totally different trip, you can pull up exactly what she said she wanted the first time without asking her to repeat herself.

That structured data is also what makes matching actually work instead of being guesswork. Once a contact has style, tier, and companions on file, the Group Trip Matchmaker can tell you which of your upcoming departures genuinely fits her and which ones to skip pitching entirely, saving you from sending an invite that was never going to land.

When and how to actually send it

• Send after the first real exchange, never as a reply to 'how much is Italy?' — cold forms sent too early convert badly and feel transactional.
• Frame it as saving their time: 'fill this out and I'll come to the call with real options instead of a list of questions.'
• Use a per-client link with their name pre-filled — it signals this was made specifically for them, not blasted out to a general list.
• Follow up once, 48 hours later, and then let it go. Two nudges is generous; three starts to feel like pressure.

For group departures, keep two forms entirely distinct: the client intake form above, and a separate trip intake form covering passport details, room preferences, and roommates. Mixing the two makes both feel bureaucratic and heavier than they need to be — see the rooming-list workflow for how to structure the second one properly.

Curated departures at Unrivaled Travel Experiences are a good sanity check on your own form — notice how few questions it actually takes to shortlist a trip well.