A client's throwaway comment about wanting concert tickets shouldn't be the end of the conversation. It should be the next line on the itinerary.
Summary: Hickory's new integration of Tickitto lets agents book concert, sports, and Broadway tickets in tandem with flights and hotels—earning an 8% member commission in the process. It turns a passing client comment, like wanting Cubs tickets in Chicago or a Sphere show in Vegas, into a bookable line item instead of a dead end. The payoff is bigger than the commission: it's the part of the trip clients will truly remember, and credit to their agent.
A client is headed to Chicago for a three-day trade show. The flights are booked, the downtown hotel is confirmed, and the itinerary looks exactly like every other trip you've built this month. Then the client mentions the Cubs are in town that Thursday and asks if you can get tickets—maybe enough for their spouse and kids to fly in for the weekend, too.
A year ago, that request probably went nowhere useful. You'd point them to a ticketing site, wish them luck, and move on to the next booking. Today, through Hickory's integration with Tickitto, that request is a few clicks inside the platform you already use.
And it's worth an 8% commission on top of the trip you'd already booked.
Business travel has been quietly changing shape for a few years now.
The three-day work trip that used to end with a Friday-morning flight home increasingly stretches into the weekend, with a spouse flying in, a couple of kids added to the hotel reservation, and a concert or ballgame built around whatever happens to be in town that week.
Hickory's own leadership frames it less as a trend and more as a baseline shift: extending a trip with a game, a show, or a few extra days for family isn't a bonus clients are hoping for anymore.
It's simply what they expect, whether or not you're the one who helps them arrange it.
That expectation creates a real gap for agents without an easy way to act on it. A client mentioning a concert or a game isn't a booking request in most systems. It's a dead end, a moment where the agent shrugs and the client goes and finishes the job somewhere else, on some other site, with no commission attached and no credit for making the trip better. Hickory closes that gap.
It also points to something bigger. For most of the industry's history, a travel agent's job stopped at transportation and lodging—get the client there, get them a place to sleep, and everything that happened in between was the client's own business.
That's a narrower definition of the job than most clients want filled these days. A trip is the flight and the hotel, sure, but it's also the two hours a client gets to spend somewhere that isn't a conference room, and increasingly, agents are the ones in a position to help build that part too.
Ticketto empowers agents to focus more on experiences, leaving less money on the table and opening up new opportunities.
Founded in 2018 and acquired last year by InteleTravel—Hickory's own parent company—Tickitto built an event-commerce API that sources, prices, and sells tickets to concerts, sporting events, Broadway shows, and curated local experiences around the world.
It launched in the U.S. only recently, and Hickory's integration makes access to inventory much easier.
To be sure, any agency, corporate travel department, corporation, or Hickory supplier can browse and book event tickets through Hickory's site. But the 8% commission on every transaction is a member benefit specifically; it's the difference between recommending a nice add-on and getting paid for building a better trip.
For members, adding a concert or a ballgame to an itinerary is no longer a favor to the client anymore. It's a second, low-effort revenue line on a booking you were already making.
Let’s go back to the Chicago trade show client again. The core trip—flights, hotel, ground transportation—gets built the same way it always has.
But now, a quick search inside the Tickitto integration surfaces the game, and since the trip is already extending into the weekend for family to join, the agent effortlessly books an extra hotel night while they're at it. The client leaves the trade show with a stack of new leads and a weekend at Wrigley with their kids. The agent leaves with a bigger, stickier booking and a commission on a ticket sale that wouldn't have existed in this itinerary a year ago.
Or take a client flying to Las Vegas for a trade show who mentions, almost in passing, that they'd love to catch whatever's playing at the Sphere while they're in town. That's exactly the kind of request that used to disappear into a "let me know if you find something" reply. Now it's a line item.
The agent checks availability, books the seats alongside the hotel and airport transfer, and a three-day work trip turns into one the client will tell people about—which, for an agent trying to stay top of mind with a corporate client, matters more than it might sound like it should.
Neither of these examples required the agent to become an events specialist or spend an afternoon hunting down a broker. Both platforms communicate, so booking flights or hotels and adding experiences to an itinerary doesn’t feel like two separate errands.
The 8% commission is definitely an incentive in itself. At the same time, every booking an agent makes for flights and hotels is, by definition, something the client needs. It's logistics—necessary, but not memorable.
An event ticket is different. It's the one part of the itinerary the client genuinely looks forward to, and it's the part they'll remember was the agent's idea. Tickitto's founder and CEO, Dana Lattouf, has framed the appeal in similar terms: business travel is shifting from a purely functional experience toward one where meaning matters as much as efficiency, and pairing events with flights and hotels is what turns a routine work trip into something a traveler remembers.
"It's about unlocking a new layer of value in business travel," Hickory president and managing partner Chris Dane said when the integration launched.
That's the real pitch to make, internally and to clients: an agent who can source Cubs tickets or Sphere seats in the same conversation as the flight and hotel isn't just booking travel. They're building the kind of trip a client tells their team about—a far better way to stay the first call for the next trip than being marginally competitive on airfare ever was.
None of this requires new training, a new login, or a new vendor relationship to manage. It's already sitting inside Hickory's platform, at hickoryglobalpartners.com/event-tickets, ready the next time a client mentions a concert, a game, or a show while you're building their itinerary. Add it to your next booking; the commission is the same whether you think to offer it or wait for the client to ask.
About Hickory Global Partners
Founded over 40 years ago, Hickory Global Partners is an industry-leading global alliance for Travel Management Companies (TMCs), Corporate Travel Departments (CTDs) and corporations that delivers unparalleled negotiated discounts and commissions, resources, support, and value that significantly benefit its members and, ultimately, their clients. Hickory Global Partners bridges the gap between members and suppliers and raises the bar on what being a global corporate travel alliance is all about. Its visionary hotel program, robust air program, one-of-a-kind ground transportation program, comprehensive ancillary portfolio and HS365 agent support program including providing after hours service make Hickory Global Partners an important strategic partner in the corporate travel industry. Hickory Global Partners is a wholly owned unit of InteleTravel.
About Tickitto
Tickitto, founded in 2018 and part of InteleTravel, is an event commerce infrastructure platform that connects travel sellers to global, curated event inventory. Through a single API, partners can source, price and distribute tickets to high-demand experiences—from sports and concerts to cultural and local events—seamlessly within their existing booking flow. By embedding event commerce into travel, Tickitto enables partners to unlock new revenue streams, increase basket size and deliver more differentiated, experience-led journeys. For more information, visit www.tickitto.com.