Wilderness Dazzles at Virtuoso 2023

Virtuoso celebrated its 35th annual Travel Week in Las Vegas from 12 to 18 August 2023. Since the pandemic, the Virtuoso network has bounced back strongly, with record sales figures achieved this year and an anticipated 50% increase in leisure travel spending over the coming three years. There were an estimated 1,500 new Travel Advisors at this year’s show, with lots of excellent business potential. Exciting times for the industry!

Our formidable Wilderness team attended Virtuoso Travel Week and worked tirelessly to spread the Wilderness word. They included Hadley Allen, Amanda Wilson, Craig Glatthaar, Alison May, Yandisa Ngcuka, Iain McConachie, Olivier de Froberville and Gabriella Gentil.

Feedback from the team on the ground was that our Adventure Community booth was a huge hit, and stood out with its inspiring banners and design. There was tremendous interest in Usawa Serengeti, and ‘A luxury mobile camp which migrates with the wildebeest’ became the tagline. Mokete drew great attention too. Sleep-outs were a hot topic, along with hot air ballooning, walking with white rhino and gorilla trekking.  Singles’ travel is on the rise and an industry trend to watch.

Wilderness Numbers at Virtuoso Week 2023

# 104 track meetings – each meeting was 6 minutes with a variety of agents

# Over 25 matched-agent meetings (1-on-1 meetings) plus a number of “anytime” meetings set up by our sales managers directly with agents

# Over 35 meetings in our lounge area with agents and agency owners

# The team hosted a total of 6 dinners with over 20 agents, including Alison’s annual FAM reunion dinner

# At our Globetrotting booth we hosted 238 agents from the Virtuoso Adventure Community throughout the day

# Wilderness hosted a table of 8 agents at the Africa Lunch, which had a total of 288 agents in attendance

# 4 meetings with various Virtuoso teams regarding marketing, editorial content and business information

Craig sums up the week for us: “This year we had an all-star team attending Virtuoso Travel Week in Lost Wages (also known as Las Vegas). It was an exciting show, with almost one-quarter of all Virtuoso advisors new to the show – so loads of potential for inspiring African travel amongst some of the new advisors. Wilderness attended the Sustainability Council meeting, where Virtuoso has now set the tone for an exciting mission statement ‘to make sustainability a greater factor in consumer choice when planning travel, so that those who do good are successful’. The paper badges, aluminium water bottles and the exciting Power of Travel sustainability content hub were all exciting indicators that Virtuoso is set to make an impact in travelling responsibly, and with sustainability in mind. As tradition would dictate, the Wilderness team represented at the final dinner and close-down party in show-stopping summer-cut zebra suits”.