PHOTO: "What we do is not to be cookie cutter but unique … enriching the lives of travelers," says Virtuoso CEO Matthew Upchurch. (photo by James Shillinglaw)
For the past three years Virtuoso, the international luxury travel network, has been growing its annual Virtuoso Travel Week effectively into the "fashion week" of the high-end travel business. Indeed, Virtuoso may have arrived at its goal based on this week's event.
The 26th Virtuoso Travel Week, formerly known as Virtuoso Travel Mart, at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, has drawn record-breaking attendance of roughly 4,420 participants from 92 countries. That overall figure includes 2,124 Virtuoso travel advisors, 1,836 preferred supplier partners, and more than 40 members of the media.
This year's Virtuoso Week, themed as "enriching lives through human connection," brings together the travel industry's top players in the luxury travel space, with an estimated effect on travel sales of $450 million, according to Virtuoso executives.
As usual the event is focused on Virtuoso's hallmark four-minute, one-on-one meetings between travel advisors and suppliers, with nearly 354,000 meetings set to take place between Aug. 11 and Aug. 15. Every Virtuoso-affiliated agency has an opportunity to meet with every Virtuoso travel partner.
At the same time, Virtuoso used its annual event to introduce a number of new or updated programs. First, it announced that it has revamped its Virtuoso.com website once again to better merchandise its travel advisors. Late last year it began uploading profiles of its advisors and marketing them to the public on Virtuoso.com. It has now refreshed those profiles and improved the site's destination content. Roughly 425 travel advisors can now be contacted directly by consumers interested in booking travel, though profiles for most of the Virtuoso's other 8,000 plus advisors also are available for viewing.
Virtuoso also is promoting a new co-branded website program for travel agency members and individual advisors using content from Virtuoso.com, but a call to action to the member agency or individual advisor. There are now more than 200 co-branded member websites, but Virtuoso is now opening up the program to its more than 8,000 individual travel advisors.
In addition, Virtuoso has developed a new lead generation program using travel advisors who have profiles on Virtuoso.com, supported by several lead generation supplier and destination partners working under three different lead generation programs: Core, Specialist and Membership.
The Core program is open to all travel advisors who meeting certain minimum requirements, have completed a profile on Virtuoso.com, participate in Virtuoso's Composer reports system, complete training, and sign a contract approved by their owner manager. They must also agree to participate in Virtuoso's reviews and recommendations program, under which clients can review their advisor.
The Specialty program links travel advisors in the Virtuoso.com profiles program with eight key destination partners. Advisors must be trained in the destination and work in a marketing program to better sell it. Destinations drive consumer leads directly to those advisors who participate in the program. Participating destinations include Australia, Fiji, Spain, Peru, Hawaii, Switzerland, Germany and New Zealand.
The Membership program is the most sophisticated and is open to only a select few travel advisors. These advisors must apply to be in the program, pay a nominal fee to Virtuoso and work in a branded partnership with three key partners: Saveur magazine, Cunard and National Geographic. They receive leads from all three partners. Other lead generation partners will be announced in the first quarter next year during Virtuoso's regional meetings.
Virtuoso also announced a formal program around its Return on Life concept, first introduced in 2008, which seeks to provide travel advisors with a structured process and tool set to help meet their clients' travel needs over a multi-year period or even a lifetime. Much like a financial advisor sets financial goals and programs, Virtuoso travel advisors can now become consultants to meet their clients' travel needs, even the needs of families with children who are interested in better educating their kids about the world, through a new program called Journey to Global Citizenship.
Virtuoso Travel Week officially kicked off Aug. 10 with an opening general session hosted by Virtuoso CEO Matthew Upchurch, who noted that Virtuoso is now focused on building a global member network of luxury travel advisors and luxury suppliers. The group is now seeking to expand into Europe after having already grown beyond North America into Latin America, Australia and New Zealand.
"We want to move more resources into global markets while ensuring the resources are there to support global growth," Upchurch said. "Our vision for Virtuoso as a whole is to support the uniqueness of each member agency and their advisors. What we do is not to be cookie cutter but unique…enriching the lives of travelers."
Upchurch said Virtuoso's platform must support the creation of value in whatever form it takes.
"Our platform's heart is the strengths of our relationships … enabled by the tools to support them," Upchurch said.
He said his group had powerful common values to serve the luxury and experiential traveler. He also pointed out that the growth in travel and tourism is the envy of many other industries. Indeed, he said sales in luxury hotels now are significantly higher than global auto sales.
At the same time, Upchurch said Virtuoso advisors are not trying to serve every traveler for every trip. He said his group serves two main traveler types: Those who can benefit from advisor's knowledge of specific destinations and those who can benefit from a specialist in a particular traveler.
"There are so many ways of researching and booking travel," Upchurch said. "Our value is throughout the lifetime of a traveler in a collaborative travel planning process."
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