GOSTELOW REPORT—”We inspire hoteliers by being able to tell the story that they are not just selling rooms, they offer feeling and memories,” says Matthew Upchurch, Virtuoso chairman and CEO, who last week led the annual Virtuoso Symposium in Melbourne, Australia.
Story-telling was a main theme at the symposium, which ran May 6-10. The biggest global association of travel advisers now has 20,000 members in 50 countries, and whatever it organizes attracts hotels’ attention. “It was well worth the long journey from Boston to Melbourne,” said Stephen Johnston, back home after the event. “The attendees were very well-established experts, and this is a rare opportunity to spend quality time engaging with them.”
The 508-strong delegate list included numerous hoteliers, plus top names from cruise lines, tourist boards and other partners, and 200 travel advisers, from 41 countries. “Beforehand, my expectations were really to be able to connect with key players in the industry, and I believe it is important to do this in person: Looking back, it was indeed a great opportunity to network, and more importantly network with the right stakeholders – it was a very successful event for us,” said first-timer Dave Junker, GM of Shangri-La’s Boracay Resort & Spa in the Philippines.
Melbourne was a popular choice of venue. “I regard myself as an honorary friend of Australia. The country has always offered authenticity, and now the rest of the world is catching up,” declared Upchurch, with characteristic honesty. As John O’Sullivan, MD of Tourism Australia, said at the opening cocktail at Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria, Australia is tailor-made for the luxury traveler: In 2018 the country had 9 million visitors, of whom 91,000 were in the high-spend category. His colleague Peter Bingeman, CEO of Visit Victoria, followed this by pointing out that Melbourne attracts visitors hungry for the area’s wines and sports, which include world-renowned cricket, horse-racing, rowing and tennis events.
Australia in general can also be called the home of back-packing. From time immemorial young Australians, fresh from graduation from high school or college, have gone walkabout to explore the USA or Europe. “Interestingly, today’s discerning adult visitors, like those backpackers, have an endless curiosity to learn about a locale, its people and its stories,” Upchurch said.
High-spending visitors are certainly appreciated by Virtuoso’s hotel members. “A recent YouGov poll of travelers in North America, the U.K. and Australia showed that whereas average yearly travel spend was US$7,076 in 2018, those who used a Virtuoso advisor spent US$21,534, and spent 15.7 nights away versus 9.1 nights for travelers making their own arrangements,” he continued.
The symposium’s educational program included New York-based thought leader Fred Dust, who spoke about the tension in today’s main stories (how does big data compete against human insight?). “We cannot control the future but we can bend it. The trust and knowledge throughout the network bends it into something new, memorable and of course profitable for all. We do that by facing tensions, not forcing them. Tensions are the birthplace of innovation and creativity.”
In one session, Thuy Tranthi Rieder, CMO of Rosewood Hotel Group, stressed the importance of detail in story-telling: keycards at the new Rosewood Hong Kong show sections of a water artwork as a reminder that the hotel sits directly on Victoria Harbour.
Symposium delegates went away with myriad stories. Park Hyatt Melbourne hosted the gala night’s pre-dinner cocktail. As well as featuring a woman wearing a crinoline skirt frame holding 120 Champagne flutes filled with Australia’s own Chandon bubbly, highlights were two sports trophies. Yes, the hotel had been loaned, for that one evening, the actual Australian Open tennis cup, a sterling silver beauty made in 1926, and the 18-carat gold Melbourne Cup, pinnacle of the world horse-racing community (both were protected by flotillas of cocktail-dressed security, and seminar attendees donned white cotton gloves to hold a cup, for photographs).
“There is only so much life-energy. Just as I have had the same financial adviser for 27 years, we are finding that our travel advisers really know their clients and create a travel plan, sometimes for years ahead,” Upchurch said.