Australian and New Zealand luxury successes at Virtuoso Travel Week

LAS VEGAS - With a record number of delegates closing off 4 days of back to back meetings at the 27th annual Virtuoso Travel Week conference in Las Vegas, industry leaders from across Australia and New Zealand have taken out some of the top internationally recognised prizes for luxury service.

“Australia and New Zealand have not only rated in the top ten most popular destinations for international leisure travel out of the United States, taking 5th and 6th place respectively, our representatives have been recognised for their expertise and high quality product,” Virtuoso Asia Pacific Managing Director, Michael Londregan said.

“Our local Virtuoso members are a strong force in the world of luxury travel both in the delivery of individual advisory service and through the quality of their overall business offering and this week we have seen some of the best recognised during Virtuoso Travel Week.”

Amongst the winners are Allure Travel by CTM’s Kelly Gelfand who won Most Admired Advisor (Australia/NZ) and Goldman Travel which won Top Australia/NZ Production.

In reference to Ms Gelfand, Mr Londregan said: “This is a great recognition of Kelly’s strength of service within a company that has clearly shown an ability grow globally, while retaining the ability to deliver at a personal level.

“Goldman Travel has demonstrated how well its business has integrated new business models to create a powerful force in the luxury travel space."

Mr Londregan said relationships are the key to success in luxury tourism and Virtuoso had launched a number of strategic partnerships in the Asia Pacific region in 2015 including extending its partnership with Tourism New Zealand.

“Tourism New Zealand, which took out the Tourism Board of the Year award, has put great effort in to building its luxury travel strategy and has shown the importance of relationships in achieving successful outcomes in the luxury travel space.

“In the 2014 calendar year, the Tourism New Zealand/ Virtuoso partnership was worth NZ$100 million to the New Zealand economy and we are pleased to be welcoming a new partnership with Tourism Australia, further strengthening our brand in the region.”

Virtuoso Awards are unique in that agencies, advisors and preferred partners are recognised by their peers within the network. Travel providers vote for agencies and advisors while travel agency members vote for preferred suppliers. More than 12,000 votes were cast this year.

sourced:traveldailynews.asia