Global luxury travel network Virtuoso recently held its first event of the year, the annual US and Canada Forum,

The live, virtual event was held Feb. 2-4 and was sold out with more than 350 attendees. Business sessions included more than 2,745 one-to-one networking appointments, professional development courses, a live address from Virtuoso's Chairman and CEO Matthew D. Upchurch and presentations on the company's forward plans from key Virtuoso leaders.

The event, which brought together the owners and managers from Virtuoso's travel agency members in the US and Canada as well as its preferred partners from across the globe, was met with optimism for travel's future as pent-up demand within the leisure travel sector becomes increasingly apparent, along with a more conscious perspective for building back better.

"As an industry, we've been through the toughest days we've ever faced, and we know to get to the other side, we have to work together; ours is an interdependent business and we need each other," said Upchurch. "If you look beyond the challenge, the opportunity ahead of us is immense, to come back stronger.

"As always, the customer sits at the center and determines our fate, but all indicators are that people want to travel again, with 93% of our clients saying they will never take travelling for granted again. And whenever there is a major disruption, it actually helps our profession. People refocus on the value of working with a travel professional, and we're seeing more consumers than ever seeking out Virtuoso advisors as a result."

Describing travel as a megatrend that provides appreciated value to people's lives, Virtuoso's senior vice president of global partnerships, Albert Herrera, led the Forum's Opening Session by balancing the realities the industry is facing with the opportunity that lies ahead. While service spending in 2020 fell by $575 billion, an eight per cent decline, it has been reported that Americans' personal savings have increased 173% over 2019 (source: The New York Times)

In addition to the pent-up emotional demand to get away, travellers have more means than ever to do so. He further explained the premium placed on Virtuoso's luxury travellers in particular, sharing that research conducted jointly with YouGov identified the average annual household income of the Virtuoso traveller is over $300,000 USD, with 44% of clients within the top five per cent income bracket.

Greater financial means, desire to get away and an uptick in appreciation for the benefits a professional travel advisor provides has led to a significant increase in consumers seeking out advisors via the network's Virtuoso.com website.

Inquiries doubled from June to September 2020, and January 2021 brought renewed optimism with as much as a 50% increase over December in requests to be connected to an advisor. And that optimism wasn't limited to consumers. According to a recent Virtuoso survey, when asked when the network anticipated feeling comfortable or confident about business returning, an overwhelming consensus of 80% of respondents said that it will be this year; a surprising seven per cent said they are already there. Virtuoso advisors said almost half of their daily business is new bookings, with only 10% using travel credits and a full 38% being business with full revenue.

Virtuoso advised that during the last quarter of 2020, bookings began to pick up across all partner categories. Cruises, hotels, on-sites and tour operators all booked more business in December than they did in October, some by as much as 40%. Overall, the network showed double-digit increases in terms of share and its support of preferred hotels. Additionally, those who booked also stayed longer – an increase of 13% in average length of stay. Even better says Virtuoso, clients spent 2.8 times more on preferred bookings than on non-preferred hotels.

The Virtuoso network is well poised to lead the way to recovery as it counts over 2,000 of the world's best travel partners and properties as part of its portfolio, with an impressive 95% annual retention rate within its Hotels & Resorts program and a long list of applicants waiting in the wings. In 2020, Virtuoso also welcomed new agencies from every region to its network, with attrition of only two per cent largely due to the pandemic.

Virtuoso senior vice president of marketing, Helen McCabe-Young, laid out the group's strategy around building strength in the Virtuoso brand and products for the benefit of the entire network, as well as increased emphasis on global public relations efforts. Building on its customer-centric marketing with measured results, McCabe-Young said 2021 marketing will focus on enhancing data and insights, segmentation, targeting and reporting to deliver marketing programs that support member and partner business goals. The organization will further optimize content that connects and resonates emotionally with consumers such as that featured in the network's award-winning magazine, Virtuoso Life, as well as its newly redesigned Virtuoso.com site. At the same time, Virtuoso will evolve existing products, like its legendary Best of the Best hotel guide which will launch digitally in 2021.

Virtuoso Wanderlist™, a free travel dreaming and planning social website rolled out last June, remains at the heart of the group's consumer engagement, and with good reason. Not only does it inspire travelers, Wanderlist also serves a valuable referral tool for Virtuoso advisors: when clients invite friends and family to dream with them in Wanderlist, the uptake is strong with an impressively high email invite acceptance rate of over 40 percent. Wanderlist also serves as the first aspirational database in luxury travel, providing an inside-look at where Virtuoso travelers want to go next. This insight gives Virtuoso's network participants an advantage, allowing them to influence future demand at an earlier phase in the consumer dreaming cycle. In fact, the exceptional experiences provided by Virtuoso partners have been added to Wanderlists nearly 40,000 times. Current top Wanderlist destinations are Italy, France, Japan, Australia, Greece, South Africa, Spain, US, Iceland and the UK. Travelers remain interested in experiences that are more isolated and off the beaten path, or that revolve around wellness and culture, all of which echoes what Virtuoso is seeing in bookings: sustainability, ski and wellness remain steady, as does adventure, beach, golf and seclusion-oriented travel.

Virtuoso then focused on its core pillars as a company, reporting that during its meetings with members and partners over the last year, a common theme emerged around the desire to use this time of change to not just rebuild businesses, but to improve the travel industry. Starting last summer, Virtuoso began the important work of addressing diversity and inclusion in the Virtuoso network and in the travel industry at large. Diversity and anti-bias professional development training with Tony Chatman was featured during Virtuoso Travel Week. Additionally, in 2020 a working group of partners, members and Virtuoso staff was formed, and facilitated by the nationally acclaimed business coach, lecturer, and motivational speaker Ellen J. Burton. The group identified three areas of focus:

Committing to anti-racism as a core value and supporting diverse employment

Education by promoting resources to help its network learn

Empowerment through intentional networking and relationship-building

Another core value and strategic tenet within Virtuoso, which began more than a decade ago, is sustainability. This last year has made travelers more cognizant of their place in the world and this has led to what Virtuoso's Vice-Chair and Sustainability Strategist Jessica Hall Upchurch calls "the conscious comeback." The three key pillars Virtuoso identified in 2017 remain the guidepost: travel that protects the planet; supports local economies; and preserves cultural heritage. Virtuoso remains committed to its mission of making sustainability a greater factor in consumer choice so that those driving and delivering sustainable experiences are financially successful, and to provide a leadership position for advisors who can make it easier for affluent consumers to give their money to brands that do good. And the desire to explore the planet in a way that protects the places they love for future generations to come is strong, particularly among affluent consumers. Poll results showed that 75 percent of Virtuoso clients said the pandemic has made them want to travel more sustainably in the future.

For more information on Virtuoso and its global network of luxury travel's best, visit www.Virtuoso.com.