VIRTUOSO® ANNOUNCES THE END OF ITS FAMED
‘TRAVEL MART’ CONFERENCE…

AND INTRODUCES ‘VIRTUOSO TRAVEL WEEK’

NEW YORK (April 26, 2012) – Leading luxury travel agency network, Virtuoso®, announced during its annual Symposium that its venerable Travel Mart conference will be enjoying a new moniker this year: ‘Virtuoso Travel Week.’ The conference’s 24-year history as ‘Virtuoso Travel Mart’ has established it as the industry’s leading luxury travel show. The famed four-minute appointments that pair Virtuoso’s elite members with its world’s-best preferred suppliers resulting in more than 400,000 individual appointments over the course of four days – the hallmark of the show – will remain an integral part of the meeting.

Changing the conference name to ‘Virtuoso Travel Week’ marks another step in Virtuoso’s Collaborative Commerce strategy, introduced in 2011, which brings consumers more fully into the travel planning process. Virtuoso says rebranding the conference is the natural evolution of the meeting that has grown to nearly 4,000 attendees and results in millions of dollars in luxury travel sales every year.

“We started Travel Mart as a means of fostering relationships between our members and their frontline advisors, and our preferred suppliers,” says Matthew D. Upchurch, CTC, Chairman and CEO of Virtuoso. “We have members who effectively relocate their offices to Las Vegas every year for Travel Mart, and they inform their clients that they’re going on a buying trip. Our goal in 2012 is to have our advisors invite their clients virtually to ‘Virtuoso Travel Week’ and fully integrate them into the ultimate travel community.”

The announcement is one of several strategic components revealed at Virtuoso’s Symposium, which took place April 19-23 aboard Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ Seven Seas Mariner from Rome, Italy to Monte Carlo. ‘Virtuoso Travel Week’ kicks off August 12-17, 2012, at Las Vegas’ Bellagio hotel. For more information on Virtuoso, visit www.virtuoso.com .

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About Virtuoso
Virtuoso® is the industry’s leading luxury travel network. This by-invitation-only organization comprises over 330 agencies with more than 7,200 elite travel specialists in 20 countries in North and South America, the Caribbean, Australia and New Zealand, as well as over 1,250 of the world’s best travel provveliders and premier destinations. The network’s member agencies generate over $9.6 billion annually in travel sales, making the group the most powerful in the luxury travel segment. Their relationships with the finest travel companies provide the network’s affluent clientele with exclusive amenities, rare experiences and privileged access. Visit www.virtuoso.com , or view Virtuoso’s latest videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/VirtuosoTraveler .

Media Contacts:
Misty Ewing
Virtuoso – Director, Public Relations
Phone: 202.553.8817
E-mail: mewing@virtuoso.com  

Emily Venugopal / Jami Gordon-Smith
The Brandman Agency
Phone: 212.683.2442
Email: emily@brandmanpr.com / jami@brandmanpr.com