Virtuoso Looks to Help Agencies Get Beyond the Daily Grind
Photo Credit: Pictured is Virtuoso CEO Matthew Upchurch. The luxury agency group unveiled a strategic collaboration program for long-term planning. Virtuoso / Charlie Sawyer Photography
Skift Take
Virtuoso is a you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours kind of business. The luxury travel network has some good programs to help member agencies, and that increases engagement with Virtuoso. It also provides learnings on how to keep refining the company.
What's one of the impediments to getting ahead in the travel advisor business?
According to Matthew Upchurch, the CEO of Virtuoso, a network of luxury travel agencies, travel advisors often don't control their own time. They arrive in the office in the morning and might plan to work on long-term strategy, but an important client has her flight cancelled in Paris because of a storm or strike, and then travel advisors have to jump on that as cancellations build. Soon, the day gets away from them.
That's one of the reasons, he said at a briefing for the press at Virtuoso headquarters in New York City Tuesday, that the agency group recently unveiled a strategic collaboration program, which pairs travel agencies with regional directors or account managers to create strategic plans.
The agencies select three p
