TomTravel2

As the luxury travel business gathered at the Bellagio in Las Vegas for the world’s largest luxury travel exposition the elephant was an expected (though not very welcome) arrival by nearly all of the participants. A little birds also flitted into the halls. “The elephant in the room” at any gathering of people who work in the travel business these days is of course the economic malaise that has dragged down the world economy. At the opening ceremony Matthew Upchurch addressed it in his opening remarks. The keynote speaker spoke about it at length. It was of course a topic on the table in many of our discussions and at the meetings with travel suppliers.  We all knew it would be. We speak to people all the time and the subject often comes up.

The travel business has been one of the industries most effected by the deep recession of the past year. The elephant needed no introduction to the people at this event. We all know more than one person who has lost a job this year. Many in the industry have had to scramble to survive on lower revenues and bookings. We have all had our villages visited by the elephant. Our gardens and often many of our houses have been trampled by the beast. Most have learned to adjust to life with this unwelcome intruder. In fact, it was my overwhelming impression from discussing the outlook for business with hundreds of people, most of us are looking past it. Despite a rough year we in the travel business are mostly looking forward with hope or outright optimism. “The Power of One to One” in this case put the issue on the table and dismissed it forthright.

Those who know me are not surprised that I am optimistic. What surprised even me was how many shared that outlook. When asked how business currently is  most reported things have already improved somewhat. Looking forward most of what I heard indicated that bookings for the coming quarter, and for next year are continuing to show improvement. The worst of the damage from the elephant is probably behind us. Despite its large presence none of us let the elephant ruin our party! Whether the recession has ended already or will be ending this fall won’t be known until after the fact. I consider the positive outlook of many travel suppliers and travel agents very reassuring. One of my favorite stories heard during the doings was one of the agents being asked by the elevator security man “What type of convention are you attending.” She replied “We are travel agents and suppliers.” The man said “I have never seen a happier group of people in my life, and I have worked here a long time.”

Well before the elephant was addressed at the opening session, the bird had slipped into the picture. For many the splash they would go on to make was a huge surprise. For those “bird watchers” like me in attendance the impact was anticipated, but the scale of the buzz created shocked even me. For the first time Virtuoso introduced trainings on social media at Travel Mart. The first of these events preceded the Opening Ceremony by a day. By the evening’s events at VAST Globetrotting Expo I was already becoming aware of the bird buzz that would follow me around for rest of the event. Several people recognized me from seeing my picture at the training (or from seeing and hearing me answer questions at the behest of the trainers). There was a shared recognition by several people I have mutual follow relationships on Twitter. Several others recognized me from my profile head shot but couldn’t place where they knew me from. As these two use a company logo instead of a head shot I had no idea where we might have met until they remembered that Twitter was where they knew me from.

The little bird flitted throughout the massive conference center tweeting the news about social media everywhere it went. It became probably the hottest topic of conversation at Travel Mart. As one of the visible bird watchers at the event I had anticipated some bird buzz. The scale of the buzz was way beyond anything I had imagined. I ended up having several hundred conversations with people who sought me out to comment or ask questions about social media. It took me several hours to make my way to the door to leave one of the cocktail parties because people kept stopping me to talk about it all. Take my word for it, Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In were the hot topics for this year’s Travel Mart.

Not all of the twittering about social media was from fans. There were a good number of people who asked me very pointed questions indicating strong skepticism about the whole phenomenon. Even though some of these people weren’t so sure of the value of all this online sharing they were aware of it and at the least curious. A few of the most cynical questioners have since shown up following me on Twitter or friending me on Facebook. As interesting as those conversations were, that fact may be far more telling than the words we exchanged. No person is now unaware of the existence and trendiness of social media networks unless they live in a total media vacuum. Television and radio networks and personalities happily chirp out “Follow us/me on Twitter and Facebook” with increasing frequency. Even those who are convinced it all amounts to a hill of beans feel the need to become more informed about it.

While we all knew the elephant was coming to Travel Mart most of us gave little heed. The little bird’s arrival was much less anticipated but far more dramatic. The jury is still out on exactly what the long term impact of social media will be on the travel industry as a whole or on it’s individual constituents. This is what I take away from my rather unique experience of the bird buzz at this year’s Virtuoso Travel Mart: the players in the travel game are aware of social media and it’s potential import. Many people are jumping on the social media band wagon and trying to quickly learn all they can to get up to speed. Some are sitting back and observing to see where it all leads before they do anything. The smallest number are those who choose to ignore the whole thing. An elephant and a little bird went to this year’s Virtuoso Travel Mart. The elephant will soon be an unpleasant memory for most of the participants, but the bird will be on the radar screen for many years to come.