What Happens in Vegas Doesn’t Stay in Vegas, and I’m Telling Everyone 
I’m drawing inspiration from comic, Dane Cook – what happens in Vegas Doesn’t Stay in Vegas, and I’m Telling Everyone!
What a week in Vegas I just had at Virtuoso Travel Week.
Virtuoso Travel Week is an annual coming together in the Vegas August heat with travel colleagues from the cruise, hotel, tour, destination management company, airline, private jet, travel advisor and agency worlds coming together.
It is the equivalent of Paris Fashion Week for the travel industry.
This was my 12th Virtuoso Travel Week – I’d attended 9 in a row in person, then 2 virtually, so it was great to be back for #12 to live it and feel it.
VTW is designed for all attendees to learn about trends, develop business, build relationships, and network. It’s a week that has every day beginning with 6 am breakfast meetings and goes into full- day meetings, with luncheon meetings and dinners as well. It is energizing and exhilarating, yet totally exhausting (especially as you walk multiples of your daily10,000 step counts going between Bellagio, Aria, and Vdara hotels for meetings; and you try to stay atop of client matters.)
About 5000 of us gathered this year from around the globe. It was so good to be attending in person, again. I will be carrying the energy with me in the days ahead.
The days were chock a block full – and the night times too.
I won an award for Virtuoso Wellness community – which was amazing. It was such an honour to even be nominated, so to win really was a surprise.
And it was great to party and celebrate that TRAVEL IS BACK with my #virtuosotravel cruise partners and advisor colleagues from around the world.
It was wonderful to be back at the cruising night of the year with the “white party” for the top Producers in virtuoso voyages . I’m always honoured to receive an invite, and celebrate with my other cruising colleagues who sell more than $350k usd in cruises in a year. No easy feat this year, as I’ve still been cancelling and rebooking cruises because of the pandemic. All with little or no revenue coming in, but working hard to protect our clients’ investments in their trips. But those of us still standing in the cruise industry know the hard work and endurance it took to get through – for river, expedition, small ship ocean cruising and more.
So, a celebration of our perseverance with the “cruise night out” was long overdue. It was great to be around my partners from Lindblad Expeditions (who won best expedition cruise), AMA Waterways (who won best river cruise), and Silversea (who won best ocean cruise). As well as my partners like Quark, Oceania, Regent, Paul Gauguin, Avalon, Uniworld, and so many more. Let me know if you’d like to learn about the latest news in cruise travel, and ways I can help you with your bucket list trip – whether rivers, expedition, or small ship ocean cruises.
But I also met land operators – like Norwegian Adventures, whom I’m working on a huge trip for clients; Big Five Tours, who I always work with for Africa and South America for clients; Southern World, who I’m working a big trip for clients to New Zealand and Australia; as well as destination management companies for Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Greece, South Africa, Tahiti, Peru, Botswana, Europe, and so much more.
I met hoteliers from Punta Mita to Budapest to Reykjavik and more.
We had over 5000 attendees, 4320 were in person in Vegas (with 680 others participating virtually).We had over 100 countries represented; and there were a total of over 180,000 total business meetings and appointments.
I went “shopping” for specific clients in mind during our “travel fashion week”, on trips we’d already been working on, but I can certainly leverage those relationships and skills, and knowledge, to help you with your upcoming bucket list trip.
So – thanks, to comic Dane Cook – let me tell you that what happened in Vegas is not staying in Vegas.
I am here to help you plan your next bucket list trip – and – leverage all the relationships I have with terrific partners around the globe.
