Shangri-La | it's in our nature

Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts hosted the Hotels Dinner on Wednesday night of this year's Virtuoso Travel Week. The dinner began with an amazing film that you can watch in the YouTube video above.

Virtuoso is an invitation-only consortium of the best luxury travel consultants in the world. About one thousand hotels and resorts are part of the program, and travelers can benefit from value-added amenities (such as free breakfast for two, room upgrades, and hotel credits) by reserving through their Virtuoso travel consultant.

Twelve Shangri-La properties are members of Virtuoso.

copyright (c) 2014 by David Ourisman LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell Travel. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.

Virtuoso Travel Week | Aug 11-17

This video expresses what Virtuoso Travel Mart Week is all about. The name has changed, but the basic idea remains the same — networking. Thousands of luxury travel consultants spend a week together with perhaps one thousand reps from five star hotels and resorts, cruise lines, tour companies, onsites, and specialty suppliers. Reps tell travel consultants what's new about their products, and travel consultants are basically shopping on behalf of our clients. Everyone always want to know about the most exciting new hotels and exotic travel destinations.

With literally 24 hours of 4-minute appointments over four days (we call it "speed dating"), Virtuoso Travel Week is an exhausting but worthwhile experience. Rick Baron of Tauck Tours may have overstated the case in the video… or, this may actually be the case with extraverts! In his experience, "Instead of being completely exhausted, I think we come back enthused, energetic, rejuvenated and energized."

Honestly, I do come home exhausted. My first year, I even had nightmares for several weeks — endless lines of people coming by and talking to me. Virtuoso Travel Week is an assault on the senses, but it's so valuable, I do it anyway.

Where do you want to go next? Let me know, and I go shopping for you at Virtuoso Travel Week in Las Vegas.


Virtuoso Travel Week (search here on Google)


copyright (c) 2012 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. .