One On One With TMR: Virtuoso CEO Matthew Upchurch

When Travel Market Report caught up with Virtuoso CEO Matthew Upchurch after his speech at the Skift conference in Brooklyn last week, he shared a glimpse into what’s on his mind.

Upchurch is feeling bullish about the future of travel agents, their role in guiding the Millennial generation, and the growth of Virtuoso in general and in Europe in particular.

Upchurch said he is focused right now on continuing Virtuoso’s international expansion, with plans to be “in seven or eight countries” in Europe, “with agents who fit our footprint of offering luxury and experiential travel.”

Also on the agenda is building co-branded websites for both agencies and individual agents. And Virtuoso also has been reaching out to consumers directly, with Virtuoso executives appearing on The Today Show and CNBC.

“The consumer piece of it is becoming more and more important,” Upchurch said, “as we are now interested in attracting new consumers and, importantly, new talent.”

Looking across service industries, Virtuoso sees on one side those who have commoditized their product—including major airlines and the giant financial services companies—and on the other side the experiential economy, “which in stealth fashion has become a real force.”

Both the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) and the experiential segments are boasting about how they have eliminated intermediaries—but travel agents are not intermediaries, Upchurch noted. Rather, they are the primary contact for travelers. The most important relationship for travelers is not between them and suppliers; it is between them and their travel advisors.

“Advice-driven travel is not mutually exclusive of DIY; they can work together,” Upchurch said. “But the advisory business goes well beyond what the DIY business can do. Digital agents do not have a relationship with a hotel general manager or access to a database like ours.”

Millennials in particular, despite being the first generation that can book travel online, still consider it “a luxury to be taken care of by a travel expert,” Upchurch said.

Advice for travel agents
Speaking at the technology-focused Skift conference, meanwhile, Upchurch said that “travel agents have not just survived; they have thrived. We are the hottest new thing that never went away, with lots of young and hip people now becoming travel advisors.”

Upchurch explored the history of travel agents in recent decades—from the early days as money-savers for airlines seeking to cut labor costs by outsourcing, through being perceived as “dinosaurs” as online travel sites proliferated, up to the present, when the profession has re-emerged as true travel advisors.

Now, agents need to focus on all three key points of a trip, acting as “pre-trip consultants, a support team during a trip, and post-trip debriefers,” Upchurch said.

It’s that final piece that is the most overlooked—and the most important.

“My number-one piece of advice to agents is to debrief 100% of the clients you want to keep,” he said. “It’s all about an emotional connection between travel advisors and clients now. We are delivering experiences with security, ease of use, and inspiration.”

The key is to add value, both for clients and for suppliers. “I tell agents to let go of clients who don’t value them. And I tell suppliers that it is agents who deliver customers with the best profit margins.”

Virtuoso continues to make investments in relationships with customers, Upchurch said, “because in the tripod of advisor-client-supplier, it is the relationship between client and advisor that makes the difference. You can’t take the human out of humanity.”

He said Virtuoso has succeeded by “embracing competition among our members but setting that aside to foster cooperation as far as buying power, the creation of big data, and collective content marketing.”

And of course, a good agent never forgets to keep it human.

“Current travel desires go right to the strength of our advisors—customization and self-discovery. These are deep human traits. Every single brand in the world has one overarching goal: not to be commoditized. And that is what we do.”