2016 Virtuoso Travel Week: What's New?

by Robin Amster
Last updated: 10:30 AM ET, Tue August 9, 2016

PHOTO: In addition to the Bellagio, pictured, this year's Virtuoso Travel Week is being held at Vdara Hotel & Spa and Aria Resort & Casino. (TravelPulse file photo)

A host of new developments and partnerships were announced at the 2016 Virtuoso Travel Week, including a new Hotel Booking Tool that will match consumers with Virtuoso advisors.

This year's Travel Week drew 5,200 participants including a record 2,500 Virtuoso advisors. Held at the Bellagio in Las Vegas every year, this year the event expanded to include two other host hotels: Vdara Hotel & Spa and Aria Resort & Casino.

Executives of the luxury travel network called the new hotel booking tool, to be rolled out to consumers in October, a lead generation and referral program for Virtuoso advisors. It will be "a huge time saver" for the network's global advisors as well as for advisors who are non-GDS users, especially IC's, said David Kolner, senior vice president of global member partnerships.

Consumers can go to Virtuoso.com and book one of the 1,100 properties in Virtuoso's hotel program. All bookings will be transferred to a Virtuoso advisor. (If an existing Virtuoso client makes the booking, it's transferred to the advisor of record.)

The tool is aimed at increasing hotel sales and serving as a way for Virtuoso advisors to upsell consumers and, hopefully, turn them into repeat clients, Kolner said.

It should also prove to be a solution for what Virtuoso Chairman and CEO Matthew Upchurch called the "I didn't want to bother you'' problem.

These are the situations in which Virtuoso advisors' clients book a hotel on their own, viewing that as a simple proposition and something they don't want to bother their advisor with, Upchurch said.

Also announced was a partnership with the ABC Premier Hotel Program which will give Virtuoso members preferred commissions at more than 4,000 hotels. The program, to launch in November, won't compete with Virtuoso's hotel program because the properties-mostly three- and four-stars-are not preferred Virtuoso hotels, according to Kolner. They can be booked with an ABC rate code through the GDS.

"This will help expand our reach," Kolner said in places where Virtuoso doesn't have a preferred hotel partner.

Other new developments include:

• A partnership with Phocuswright-The travel industry research and consulting firm will vet new candidates for Virtuoso's Incubator program, which develops new technology tools through outside vendors. It will also take part in Virtuoso events while Virtuoso advisors will receive a discount to attend Phocuswright events.

• Cruise alerts-To be introduced following Virtuoso Travel Week, the alerts will monitor rate changes to booked cruise cabins so that advisors will learn about these before their clients do. It will also position advisors to upsell to higher cabins. Initially, the alerts will be available to U.S. and Canadian advisors.

• Live Chats-A way for advisors to connect with consumers in real time on Virtuoso.com. A test of the chat function resulted in a 20 percent to 50 percent rate of converting the chats to sales of $1,000 to $30,000, according to Kolner.

• Personalized Virtuoso.com Sites-These are now being offered free of charge to all advisors worldwide. There used to be a cost for a personalized site.

For the latest travel news, updates and deals, subscribe to the daily TravelPulse newsletter.