Skift Take
Virtuoso Travel Week drew record attendance to the annual event it likens to Fashion Week. While heavily touting the consortium's new Wanderlist travel planning tool, it also emphasized the human touch.
What’s on your Wanderlist? That question was the overriding theme at this year’s Virtuoso Travel Week, referencing the consortium’s new Wanderlist travel planning platform and encouraging travel advisors to take on the role of “life experience guides.”
Billing itself as the travel industry’s answer to Fashion Week, Virtuoso’s 31st annual gathering drew a record-breaking 6,515 luxury-focused travel professionals from 107 countries to Las Vegas on Aug. 10–16. Estimated to generate $420 million in travel sales, Travel Week encompassed nearly 280,000 one-to-one meetings between advisors and suppliers and over 850 networking events.
Stay Human
Speaking at the opening session, Virtuoso Chairman and CEO Mathew Upchurch and Airbnb Strategic Advisor Chip Conley set the tone for the event, each maintaining that tech innovations complement but do not override the human element in business.
[caption id="attachment_354848" align="alignright" width="300"] Airbnb Strategic Advisor Chip Conley at Virtuoso Travel Week. Photo: Virtuoso[/caption]
“Travel advisors have everything a machine does not — a machine will never be as good as your intellect,” Conley told the crowd. “Travel advisors have moved to a place where they are life experience guides. You guide people to have a better
