Jamie Biesiada
Two industry veterans have teamed up to create a new kind of agency, one they have branded as a "lifestyle travel management company" with multiple verticals: Cozy.
Cozy consists of Cozy Travel, an agency focused on curated itineraries and experiences for high net worth clients; Cozy Life, an ecommerce shop with a selection of products; and Cozy Agency, a media arm connecting influencers and suppliers.
Cozy — based in New York and Los Angeles — is the brainchild of co-founders Aanchal Gandhi and Thiago Fortunato.
Aanchal Gandhi and Thiago Fortunato, founders of Cozy. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Cozy
Fortunato started in the industry a decade ago, working mostly on the supplier side. He worked in global sales for Relais & Chateaux before joining luxury-focused agency OvationNetwork as director of travel for the West Coast. It was at OvationNetwork that he met Gandhi.
Gandhi has been in the industry for more than 18 years, getting her start as an advisor at Protravel International in the days when it was headed by founder Priscilla Alexander (the brand currently sits under Internova's Global Travel Collection). Before that, Gandhi had been an equity sales trader at Goldman Sachs.
She, too, joined OvationNetwork about four years ago as head of its West Coast operations. There, she met Fortunato.
"Both Thiago and I had envisioned to create something that was a little bit unique, a little bit different," she said.
Cozy was born late last year, just before Thanksgiving.
Cozy Travel
Cozy Travel is the agency arm of the company, affiliated with the consortium Serandipians.
"We really do everything from booking Taylor Swift concerts to private jets," Fortunato said.
Cozy Travel has its own IATA number and a team of four advisors. It is in the process of beta testing its booking platform. Fortunato said the plan is to double its number of advisors in the coming months.
Gandhi added that Cozy's air and cruise contracts are through established agencies with top commissions. It has direct connections with hotels thanks to her and Fortunato's backgrounds.
In addition to its travel arm, Cozy also has the brands Cozy Life and Cozy Agency.
Cozy Life
Cozy Life curates products that clients will identify with. Cozy is working with supplier partners like the Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal to feature the work of local artisans, as well as launching a fashion line. Cozy has collaborated with "Project Runway" winner Sean Kelly on hoodies that it describes as, what else, "cozy."
"It's a full retail site, and our idea is that this will be forever evolving," Gandhi said.
Cozy Life also marks Cozy's way of giving back to communities around the world, spotlighting local artisans via supplier partners, she said. That also speaks to its goal of promoting sustainability.
"The idea is that every quarter, we plan to work with different partners, highlighting some of the stuff that they do with their local community, and also giving back to their local community from our retail opportunities on our ecommerce site," Gandhi said.
Cozy Agency
Cozy Agency will launch in the first or second quarter of 2025. Fortunato said it's a way to engage with industry partners with content creation and marketing. Agency will marry suppliers and influencers in different demographics.
Often, Gandhi said, hoteliers get requests from influencers who want to align or collaborate with their brand. But they don't know if it's a good fit. Cozy Agency is the answer to that, helping identify the best ROI with influencer collaborations. It's something of a "matchmaking capability," she said, connecting both parties.
The three verticals are complimentary to each other by design, she said.
"We launched very recently, and our response has been amazing, not only from the industry, because we have come up to the stage with something not what our competitors are doing, but also just a different outlook to how we view travel for the future," Gandhi said.