A New Virtuoso Travel Week
Meeting In Cyberspace
This week I’ve been attending Virtuoso Travel Week, where travel advisors and suppliers in the Virtuoso Network gather to share all things travel. Due to these pandemic times, Virtuoso made Travel Week Virtual. Instead of heading to Las Vegas for a long week of short face-to-face meetings with hoteliers, tour operators, cruise line managers, and travel service providers at very small tables, I was able to attend from the comfort of my home office.
Not this year!
We didn’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn to get ready to make a 7:00 breakfast meeting, walk from the hotel to the convention center, meet with 60+people each day, walk back to the hotel, then dress up for dinner and try to get into as many cocktail parties as possible (all for the networking opportunities, of course!) before attending amazing partner events, then head back to the hotel to get ready for the next day. I really love this grueling routine although it does leave me exhausted.
A New Routine
This year, I was able to make my own schedule and request and accept appointments from nearly 1000 travel suppliers. Virtuoso hired SwapCard, an event and meeting platform, which provided the technology required for over 4000 attendees from nearly 100 countries to have simultaneous 1:1 meetings along with other events. The face-to-face meetings lasted 10 minutes, and we could block out time for lunch or Pilates class to make it customizable for everyone.
I was skeptical. Wouldn’t I miss the in-person buzz and excitement that comes from being in the big convention ballroom while hundreds around me are deep in conversation? What about hanging out after hours with my fellow travel advisors while we shared what we learned? And I knew I would miss all the convention swag that I loved to cram in my suitcase to bring home.
The Platform Worked!
Surprisingly, I have gotten a lot out of this event. The platform worked amazingly well. There was a messaging feature that allowed me to share info with advisor friends. All my face-to-face meetings were dynamic and energetic. I learned about new hotels and new touring experiences as well as revisiting some long-time favorite places. In between appointments I was able to check out seminars on topics ranging from crisis response to systems thinking.
I was able to get so much good information about traveling the world in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. I learned how people all over the world are working so hard to make travel safer for everyone, from contact-less check in and spacing out reservations, to creating smaller travel groups. The world is waiting for tourism to rebound!
The Future of Travel
I asked a few travel sellers to share their thoughts on the future of travel in their areas:
Allison May-Business Development Manager for Wilderness Safaris:
I think African travel will return in abundance, perhaps not next week or next month, but in 2021. People are looking for wide open spaces; outdoors, somewhere safe to escape too. Wilderness Safaris’ ecotourism model has always been focused on a sustainable high-end, low-impact offering. This means that our luxury camps are small and exclusive, set within large pristine wilderness areas. They offer an uncrowded alternative, compared to many other top tourist destinations. Clients will be re-looking at the way they travel in the future, and it’s important that we offer them the right experiences!
Peter Askin-Vice President Sales and Director, Southern World Australia, New Zealand and Fiji:
From a Kiwi perspective, New Zealand will be extremely careful in accepting international visitors, with contact tracing being paramount. We may think of things as being weirdly pre- and post-Covid and we will see the world through different eyes.
Marco Frank: Trade Manager for VisitFlanders:
We have discovered that travel is an essential part of our lives, not just for the human connection, but for political and cultural connections, as well. We learn that everyone has the same basic needs-we all eat, work, spend time in our environments and travel helps us gain a greater understanding of all people.Travelers will want to focus on the quality rather than the quantity of their experiences, meeting the locals and seeing how they live.
Come Back Better
The four days ended with a closing ceremony that highlighted how sustainability in travel and tourism is becoming more of a value-added proposition for travelers and travel suppliers. There was an enlightening keynote by Sheila Johnson, a Co-Founder of BET Network and Salamander Hotels, among other businesses. Her inspiring story was just what I needed to hear to remember to be grateful for my family and friends, and to be optimistic about the future.
I’m grateful to the Virtuoso Travel Network to figure out how to have this virtual conference. This was a huge undertaking and it went off pretty flawlessly. Many attended for the first time. I think virtual conferences are the wave of the future.
While I did not score any conference swag, I did recover my enthusiasm for travel. Thanks to Virtuoso Travel Week-Virtual, I can help people understand how the industry is attempting to come back better. I, too, can’t wait to get out there and explore the world again.
My new executive assistant, Harriet Roo, waiting to take notes during meetings.
