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When your mission is to make adventure welcoming for every woman, the last thing you want is tech...
Designing an Elevated Experience
For Sylvia Washington, founder of Maisanté Travel Design, travel isn’t just about logistics, it’s about crafting deeply intentional, elevated experiences.
“I don’t even say it’s a trip,” she explains. “I always say it’s an experience.”
But as her business grew, from planning trips for friends to running multiple luxury group departures each year. That level of experience became harder to deliver using tools that weren't designed for group travel.
That’s where YouLi came in.
"As a luxury travel advisor and group travel planner, having the right technology partner is essential to delivering a seamless client experience, and YouLi has become an invaluable part of my business.
The platform allows me to create beautiful, professional trip pages that I can easily embed into my website, creating a branded and elevated experience for my clients from the very beginning. It serves as a centralized hub where travelers can access itineraries, trip updates, documents, payment information, and important details all in one place. One of the features I appreciate most is the Stripe integration, which allows me to offer clients multiple payment options, including Affirm.
This added flexibility makes travel more accessible while simplifying the payment process for both my clients and my business. The platform strikes the perfect balance between functionality and presentation, allowing me to deliver a polished, professional experience that aligns with the high level of service I strive to provide through Maisanté Travel Design.
I highly recommend YouLi to any travel professional looking to simplify operations, increase efficiency, and create a more engaging experience for their travelers."
- Sylvia Washington, Maisanté Travel Design, YouLi customer since 2025
From Passion to a Growing Travel Business
Maisanté Travel Design was born organically.
What started as carefully curated trips for Sylvia and her daughter quickly evolved into something bigger. Friends began asking to join. Then their friends. Before long, Sylvia was running group trips to destinations like Dubai, Bali, the Maldives, South Africa, and beyond.
Today, she runs a mix of luxury group departures and custom experience. Some priced as high as $6,000 per person, not a budget experience! But with a strong focus on personalization and detail, Sylvia's clients are happy to pay, especially with the convenient payment options she can provide via YouLi.
“My trips are very intentional,” she says. “Even the questions I ask upfront are designed to understand exactly what someone wants from an experience.”
But that level of care came with operational complexity.
The Challenge:
Delivering a Luxury Experience Without the Right Tools
Before YouLi, Sylvia relied primarily on tools like TravelJoy, while useful for simple itineraries, it was limiting when it came to group travel.
“It worked for individual travel,” she says. “But for group trips, there were too many nuances.”
Some of the biggest challenges included:
- Fragmented payments – Difficulty allowing travelers to pay individually
- Manual admin – Updating invoices every time someone wanted to pay more before the due installment
- Limited flexibility – No dynamic payment plans based on booking date or “chip away” options
- Lack of polish – A client experience that didn’t reflect her premium brand
"It didn’t look as clean or as polished as I wanted, and that matters when you’re selling luxury.”
- Sylvia Washington, Founder and Travel Designer at Maisanté
At the same time, she was juggling multiple platforms to fill the gaps, adding complexity rather than removing it.
The Turning Point: Finding the Right Fit for Group Travel
When Sylvia discovered YouLi, the difference was immediate because YouLi is designed for Group Travel Management.
Sylvia has gone from a trip run with her family and friends to running more than 7 trips a year, all unique and always sold out. She's even ready to hire help!“I was like, okay...this is going to work!”
- Sylvia Washington, Founder and Travel Designer at Maisanté
What stood out wasn’t just one feature, but how the platform handled the real-world complexity of group travel:
✅ Travelers could pay individually or together
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With her previous platform, TravelJoy, she had to take payments as a group
✅ Payment plans could adapt dynamically
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Dynamic Payment Plans adapt to when the traveler books
✅ Clients could pay over time, on their plan or at their own pace
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When installment plans aren't enough, offer them a way to chip away at the balance
✅ Automatic late fees applied according her 3 day grace period
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“It’s not like me having to go in and manually create things every time,” she says. “That was a big shift.”
Creating a Branded, High-End Experience
For Sylvia, presentation isn’t optional, it’s core to her brand. That’s why YouLi’s trip pages quickly became a key part of her workflow.
“I love the way it looks. It’s clean, it’s classic...it just feels polished.”
- Sylvia Washington, Founder and Travel Designer at Maisanté
By embedding YouLi trips directly into her website, Sylvia is able to create a seamless, on-brand customer journey from discovery to booking.
“Even when they click through from my website, everything still feels cohesive,” she explains. “It all looks connected.”
This consistency helps reinforce the premium positioning of her business, without requiring custom builds or complex design work.
Making Luxury More Accessible with Flexible Payments
Beyond the front-end experience, YouLi has also helped Sylvia streamline her backend operations, especially around payments.
One of the most impactful shifts in Sylvia’s business has come from YouLi’s Stripe integration, particularly the ability to offer flexible payment options like Affirm alongside the classic ACH and credit card payments.
“With other platforms, I couldn’t get Affirm to work properly,”
she says. “With YouLi, it just works.”
This flexibility is critical when selling high-ticket experiences.
“Some of my trips are $6,000 per person,” Sylvia explains. “Being able to pay over time makes a huge difference.”
👉 It’s not just about convenience, it’s about unlocking latent demand.
This means:
- More bookings
- More repeat travelers
- And more unique trips
“I have people who tell me, ‘I know I shouldn’t be going on all these trips, but because I can space out the payments, I can make it work.’
It helps people go on trips they wouldn’t normally take,
and go to places they wouldn’t have considered.”- Sylvia Washington, Founder and Travel Designer at Maisanté
Lightening the Operational Load with Automatic Late Fees
A standout feature for her: automated late fees.
“I used to spend so much time chasing people,” she says. “Now it’s automatic.”
Instead of manually tracking and enforcing payment deadlines, the system ensures consistency, without awkward personal follow-ups that might be later than the stated policy.
“It just makes people more accountable,” she explains. “And it saves me time.”
Combined with dynamic payment plans and self-service options for travelers, this has significantly reduced admin overhead and increased on time payments.
Scaling with Confidence
As demand for her trips continues to grow, Sylvia is expanding her offering, by adding more departures and experimenting with new formats like multi-destination options.
She’s also increasing the number of trips she runs each year and gradually consolidating all of her operations into YouLi.
“I’m running more trips now,” she says. “And I’m moving more of them into the one platform.”
With features like Tour Series (for managing multiple departures) and embedded booking flows, she’s building toward a more scalable model, without sacrificing the quality of the experience she is designing.
Why YouLi? “It Elevates the Experience”
When asked to sum up what YouLi has done for her business, Sylvia doesn’t hesitate:
“YouLi elevates the experience.”
Sylvia Washington - Maisanté Travel Design
From first impression to final payment, the platform supports the level of service she aims to deliver, while also simplifying the operational side of the business.
Her advice to other travel professionals considering YouLi:
For luxury group travel advisors like Sylvia, success isn’t just about selling trips, it’s about delivering experiences that feel seamless, elevated, and intentional at every touchpoint.
YouLi provides: ease, convenience, and best of all: human support
YouLi delivers that for Sylvia with:
- Professional, on-brand trip experiences
- Flexible, conversion-friendly payment options
- Automation that reduces admin
- Tools designed specifically for group travel
So travel designers, like Sylvia, can focus less on managing logistics and more on designing unforgettable journeys.
Book a demo to find out if YouLi is the right choice for your Luxury Group Travel business.
