Luxury travel network Virtuoso is preparing to launch a new member facing website homepage that streamlines search functionality, a bugbear of the current platform for travel advisors.
“You told us the search function needs to be easier, just as good on mobile as desktop, and serve according to your individual needs,” Helen McCabe-Younge, Senior Vice President Marketing at Virtuoso.
Speaking to more than 4,700 delegates at Virtuoso Travel Week’s Opening Session on Sunday night, McCabe-Young revealed to advisors and partners that the new design has enhanced search navigation, notifications and has been optimised for mobile devices.
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The change means users will be able to find what they need on the Virtuoso website much faster, and the resources that it connects to will be further enhanced.
Currently being beta-tested and accessible via my.virtuoso.com, McCabe-Young encouraged early adopters to trial the new platform and provide feedback so further tweaks can be made to make it “even faster”.
A new Virtuoso website for partners is also in the pipeline.
McCabe-Young emphasised that Virtuoso’s content development and brand investment – including the ‘So Virtuoso’ B2C campaign – “leads travellers to Virtuoso advisors and preferred partners”.
“Our investment in the So Virtuoso campaign, PR, social, the magazine, digital, direct mail – you name it, it’s leading to you,” she told the audience. “We know you have your own marketing, Virtuoso’s marketing is designed to complement yours, achieving even better results through our combined efforts.”
“The more insight you share with us, the better our targeting and your returns.”
Touching on Virtuoso’s PR efforts, McCabe-Young noted that the email open rate of advisors that coded their clients by interest were three times those who didn’t. She revealed that content will be expanded to include video editorial with preferred partners, and that a UK edition of the Virtuoso magazine and a Latin America issue of the Virtuoso ‘Book’ were also under development.
“The ‘So Virtuoso’ campaign has spread globally and includes the launch of co-branded campaigns and activations we’ve developed with several amazing partners.”
“We’ll continue to build on social amplification with new tools coming and more content for distribution.”
Digital Destination Experiences
Having introduced new digital destination experiences in 2023 with Tourism Australia as the inaugural partner for the online platform, McCabe-Young revealed the next destinations would be Canada and Los Cabos, adding that several more are “in the works”.
“What’s exciting to see is the increased engagement with participating destinations and the new connections between travellers, advisors and partners.”
“We’ve seen travel bookings from both our partners and members, where trackable data has been shared with us.”
McCabe-Young said that when the collaborative approach of “everything, everywhere” comes together all at once it builds momentum.
“Working together we can continue to build on results like over 900,000 travel engagements through the So Virtuoso campaign so far this year,” she said, in line with a 76% increase in travellers searching for an advisor.
Additionally, Virtuoso has increased up to 36 times more weekly engagements with partner destination experiences for those participating, with returns averaging six times their original investment. Partner collaborations centred on data sharing and targeting has also delivered “promising results” – such as for every dollar invested, partners are getting back between a $14 and $33 dollars.
“Together we create measurable momentum and shared growth,” she said, saying that Virtuoso’s true “secret sauce” are those “trusted relationships”.
