From Virtuoso Travel Week: Travel Industry Executives Offer Advice, Share Messages to Travel Advisors

We recently sat down with several top level executives from around the travel industry while at Virtuoso Travel Week in Las Vegas.

"The Voice of Luxury" was the theme of this year's conference, which had 4,700 attendees from 97 countries around the world. 

As the 2024 calendar year continues to fly by, August is a great time to self-reflect, recharge and gear up to finish the year strong.

With that in mind, we asked these executives what their message or advice was for travel advisors today. 

Here’s what they had to say.

Matthew Upchurch, CEO, Virtuoso

“I think my number one advice is first of all make sure that you have a client portfolio strategy. I frame travel advisor as somebody that's in the relationship business…so make sure that you have a conscious plan. What do I want my portfolio look like? Who do I want to deal with? What’s my target audience?

And then the other the other thing I would say is there's this concept of working in your business versus working on your business. So, I think every professional needs to have some sort of a reasonable plan to not only work in their business but on their business meaning to stop, [say] ‘look at how I’m set up’, and to look at the bigger picture. Because otherwise it starts to happen as you just get caught in the you're so busy with this and whatever and then you just lose control.”

David Kolner, Executive Vice President Virtuoso

“I want to encourage everybody to continue to support Maui. They are still in recovery, particularly in West Maui, so if you haven't thought of booking that for your clients –  I'm going there personally on my own vacation in a couple of weeks and I'm looking forward to it – but I just know that they are still in the process of recovery in tourism volume and numbers. So I just really want to encourage everybody to please think about recommending West Maui specifically for your clients.”

Dondra Ritzenthaler, CEO Azamara Cruises

“My overall advice to travel advisors as a whole is three things. One, educate yourself. Do what you're doing here [at events] listen to what the people like Matthew Upchurch say, the tools that they give you. Listen, because then you're going to get so much more knowledge about what it is that you want to do.

So that's number one, number two is pick your partners. Decide who do you want to get to know extremely well, learn everything about them, like an Azamara brand. Learn everything you can about that brand so that you become the expert so that when you talk to someone, they will know how much knowledge you have.

And number three, make it personal. Don't be transactional with any customer, make it personal because that way they will know to always come to you, and they will then give you referrals and your business will grow. If you keep it not personal, they're going to then go somewhere else because it's a lack of desire for them. So, learn, pick your partners and be really personal with your customer and that's a winning formula.”

Samuel Chamberlain, CEO PONANT

“My piece of advice for the travel advisor committee for PONANT is really get to know us and really get to talk to our sales team. Because the diversity of our portfolio, the amount of experiences and locations that we service is almost unmatched. And that DNA of exploration we absolutely have something that's unique and differentiated for your client.”

Francesco Galli Zugaro, Owner Aqua Expeditions

“I think obviously the keyword these days is expedition cruising is the hot niche market within cruising, and I'm excited I'm bringing to market next month for a new destination and new ship. So we thank you for the support." 

Gebhard Rainer, CEO HX Hurtigruten Expeditions

“I think the message that I would like to share with the community is the fact that if you are looking for expedition cruise in terms of mindful adventure, in terms of responsible travel and making sure that you understand what the impact and the footprint is that you leave behind when you joined an expedition cruise then we are probably the perfect partner for you.

We're number one in terms of sustainability today in expedition cruising, we are very, very focused on the education and the science part of what expedition cruise is all about. And we work very closely with the communities that touch, to the extent that we almost invert the approach by letting the communities tell us what they need rather than us telling them what we expect from them.”

Brad Dean, CEO Discover Puerto Rico

“Puerto Rico is enjoying a surge of incoming travel in part because of improved product and experiences. But what we're finding today is the travel advisors and their clients are really focused on sustainable travel options and our businesses are embracing that wholeheartedly. We thank the advisors for their support.”

Christian Leibl-Cote, Executive Vice President Collette

“[My message to the travel advisor community is] we're here. We want to hear from you. We want to understand what some of your pain points are so we can help you, and what can we do to help you on the touring side because touring is growing very, very fast. 

It's a great way to get all your travelers to experience amazing experiences throughout the whole world because we have buyers and designers that live in the destinations that build the tours from A-Z. We control the whole experience; we know what the trends are and we're here to help. We want to have your clients go on our tours because we know they're going to have an amazing time. Touring is the best way to travel.”

Parveen Chander Kumar, Executive Vice President- Commercial at Indian Hotel Company Limited

“[My message to the travel advisor community is] that they should sell India more because there's a lot happening in India. In the last three years India has been through major changes in its infrastructure, there's a lot of new tourist destinations which have been opened up by the government, and India is ready to welcome international tourists like never before."

Andrew Weir, CEO Destination Toronto

“We'd love to see love to see you back in Toronto. I think the city changes at such an incredible pace and the mix of cultures that we have in the city, the new culinary scene that changes honestly from month to month, it's worth coming back and visiting. I know people have visited before but see what it's all about now and you'll see the change and just the energy of this city.”

Amy Weyman, Managing Director Abercrombie & Kent USA

“At Abercrombie and Kent we're just extremely excited about the growth opportunities ahead for the brand. We look forward to working with the travel advisor community to bring their clients to experience all these exciting new opportunities that we have.”

Daniel Hostettler, CEO The Boca Raton

“[My message to the travel advisor community is] that we're here. For so many years the property was mostly convention business and not focused on the leisure luxury traveler, but we've been open now for about two years now. It's really for us to be educating the travel advisors that there's something in South Florida besides the Breakers that's family focused and aimed directly at the luxury leisure traveler.” 

Fulvio De Bonis, CEO Imago Artis Travel

“My personal opinion to the travel advisor community, you shouldn't be scared about AI and technology. The human brain is full of ideas and full of creativity. I think that no one thing would replace our brain, and I think the AI will help us to create, to improve.”

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