Travel Mart 2011 | Aug 15-19

Thousands of Virtuoso travel consultants and suppliers will soon descend on Las Vegas and its sweltering August heat for the 2011 edition of Travel Mart. Meeting at the Bellagio Hotel, days are filled with educational opportunities, hundreds of appointments with vendors, as well as countless cocktail parties and dinners.

The picture above really captures the scale of Travel Mart. Cavernous (and refrigerated) ballrooms are filled with round tables like those pictured. Agents are assigned to one particular table throughout the four days of meetings, usually paired up with another agent from the same agency. A different representative from a hotel, tour company, or other Virtuoso supplier comes by every four minutes for what we affectionately refer to as a "four minute speed date." A lot of information is passed, but - more significantly - relationships are developed. When you want an upgrade at a certain hotel, or have special requests, your Virtuoso travel consultant draws on these relationships to try to get your request granted!

See this YouTube video for a flavor of Travel Mart!




Virtuoso travel consultant (search here on Google)

copyright (c) 2011 by David Ourisman LLC. All rights reserved. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.
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