On Location: Virtuoso Travel Week – Canada comes in hot, “looksmaxxing” & the AI dance

Canada’s luxury travel market is flexing some serious biceps in 2026 – and the country’s Virtuoso contingent has arrived in Las Vegas, Nevada with the numbers to prove it.

Virtuoso agency sales in Canada are up 13.4 per cent year over year in 2026, a notable gain that Karen Hardie, general manager for Virtuoso Canada, says speaks to the staying power of the luxury traveller.

“The luxury market is proving to be more resilient than some of the other sectors,” Hardie told PAX in the hallways of the luxurious Bellagio Resort and Casino on Sunday night. (Aug. 9) “It’s a reflection of people recognizing that they have less time than money.”

“Coming out of the pandemic, I think travellers are more resilient. They're starting to recognize that there's always going to be something…They’re pivoting on where they thought they were going to go, but they’re still going to travel.”

The “Fashion Week of Luxury Travel”

That optimism is on full display at the 38th annual Virtuoso Travel Week, which officially kicked off Sunday in Vegas, bringing together a who’s who guest list for one of the industry’s biggest networking events of the year.

The glitzy mega-event has brought together some 4,800 attendees, representing a global mix of luxury hotels, tour operators, cruise lines, experience providers, tourism boards and travel advisors (including 89 from Canada, representing 75 per cent of Virtuoso agencies in the country).

Among the Canadian agencies represented this week are host agencies such as TTI Travel, Trevello Travel Group and Direct Travel, alongside influential boutique agencies including Zebrano Travel, Momenti Travel and The Pelican Club, among others.

It’s an influential mix of travel pros who aren’t just watching trends unfold. They’re shaping what comes next. Influencers, influencing the influencers.

And they’ve come dressed for the occasion.

Virtuoso Travel Week has earned the nickname the “Fashion Week of Luxury Travel,” and judging by the scene yesterday, attendees got the memo.

Power suits, statement blazers and enough sharp tailoring to close a deal before breakfast swept through hotel hallways as attendees moved from meeting to meeting.

And with just enough function to keep things practical.

Hardie, for one, was spotted Sunday sporting a crisp pair of white New Balance sneakers to complete her polished look – a savvy choice at an event where a single day can mean clocking serious mileage between sprawling Vegas resorts.

Virtuoso events, from networking sessions to workshops, are unfolding across four properties – the Bellagio, the ARIA, the Vdara and The Cosmopolitan – through Aug. 14, making comfortable footwear less of a fashion compromise and more of a survival strategy.

There's some real sizzle in the air, too. While the A/C is cranked, Las Vegas temperatures are peaking at around 105°F (40°C) this week. (Attendees get a brief blast of Mother Nature’s hair dryer during a roughly 90-second-to-two-minute outdoor walk that connects the ARIA to other hotels).

For Hardie, however, the week carries particular importance – a rare opportunity to reconnect in person with Virtuoso’s Canadian members, as well as her own geographically dispersed team.

“It's awesome,” she told PAX. “We all work remotely across Canada, from Halifax all the way to Vancouver Island, and we don't get to spend nearly enough time together. It’s awesome when we can work together, in person, and hang out.”

Virtuoso projects 20.8% sales growth

Virtuoso is heading toward another record-setting year, with luxury travellers spending more, booking further ahead and increasingly looking to travel advisors for insider knowledge, security and highly personalized experiences.

Taking the stage in the Bellagio’s Grand Ballroom yesterday at opening session, David Kolner, executive vice president, strategic communications at Virtuoso, unpacked the latest numbers and trends shaping the consortium’s global network, revealing a business that continues to grow despite economic uncertainty and other disruptions affecting the travel landscape.

Virtuoso is projecting global network sales to increase 20.8 per cent year over year in 2026, based on reported sales from the first half of the year and projections for the remainder of 2026.

Growth is being recorded across Virtuoso's nine global regions (Canada included), while sales involving preferred partners are growing faster than non-preferred sales across all markets, said Kolner.

Hotels are leading the charge by product category, with sales up 24.5 per cent year over year, although Kolner said Virtuoso is seeing healthy growth across all sectors.

Cruise follows closely behind at 22.4 per cent, with on-site experiences accounting for 17.5 per cent and tours rounding out the mix at 11 per cent.

Hotel average daily rates (ADR) have also continued to climb month over month throughout 2026, with no signs of cooling.

But higher room rates aren't solely responsible for Virtuoso's sales gains. The network is also seeing growth in the overall number of bookings, particularly at the highest end of the luxury market.

Bookings carrying ADRs above $1,500 are growing 37 per cent – more than twice as quickly as lower-priced hotel bookings.

“As they say, Virtuoso is coffee because tea isn't strong enough,” Kolner quipped, addressing delegates.

A new normal?

Virtuoso's strongest sales day of 2026 so far also arrived considerably later than usual.

In both 2024 and 2025, Jan. 31 represented the network's biggest sales day of the year.

This year, that distinction belongs to May 29, which Kolner said was fuelled by a drop in oil prices and a high point in the stock market.

“For those of you seeing strong sales in different times, perhaps this is a new normal,” Kolner told the audience. 

But momentum isn't slowing as the calendar moves into fall.

Virtuoso's outlook shows fall bookings up 69 per cent, while festive-season sales are up 56 per cent.

Clients are also planning substantially further ahead, driven in part by multigenerational and celebration travel, Kolner said.

Sales for preferred bookings, one to two years out, are already up 50 per cent ahead of the same point last year.

Advisors remain optimistic

The numbers were accompanied by fresh sentiment data collected through a Virtuoso poll conducted several weeks before Travel Week, which drew responses from more than 1,900 participants worldwide.

Despite the year's various shocks – whether that be rising fuel prices or conflict in the Middle Easy – 68 per cent of Virtuoso members remain optimistic about their businesses, representing only a slight three per cent dip.

Optimism among preferred partners also declined slightly, but remains at 60 per cent, Kolner shared.

Client demand and financial performance are among the primary reasons for that positive outlook, while Virtuoso is also tracking growing optimism surrounding technology and emerging tools, particularly among millennials.

At the same time, clients' priorities are evolving.

Safety and security ranked as the leading new or growing client demand in Virtuoso's survey, followed closely by a desire for insider intelligence and achievement-oriented travel, such as bucket-list journeys and expeditions.

The advisor community itself is also evolving.

Virtuoso now encompasses five working generations of advisors, with Gen X representing the largest group, while millennials and Gen Z continue to increase their influence within the network.

Is “resting rich face” redefining wellness? 

Among the trends Virtuoso is watching closely is the changing face of wellness travel – quite literally.

Kolner pointed to the growing cultural trend of "maxing," including "looksmaxing," as an example of how traditional ideas around health, beauty, longevity and wellness are increasingly overlapping.

“The face of wellness travel is changing, and by that, I mean the face is literally changing,” said Kolner, earning some laughs from the audience.

“In 2026, we’re swapping the unlimited breadsticks at Olive Garden for Olive Young’s collagen face masks to achieve a completely different kind of pumping.”

Wellness tourism continues to expand significantly, with the sector projected to grow at a rate of nine per cent and reach $1.4 trillion by 2029, according to figures presented by Kolner.

“But is resting rich face really redefining wellness?” Kolner asked, playfully.

The numbers make a case.

Within Virtuoso's own research, wellness-segmented hotels represent a 28 per cent increase in bookings in 2026, while one in four global luxury travellers identified health and wellness as a primary reason for taking a trip, with particularly strong interest coming from the Middle East, Latin America and Greater China.

World Cup kicks a luxury travel win

The 2026 FIFA World Cup also proved lucrative for Virtuoso's network, despite concerns ahead of the tournament about how the massive sporting event would affect tourism in host destinations.

Kolner pointed to forecasts from CoStar and others that suggested the World Cup could produce disappointing hotel performance, with some FIFA room blocks reportedly experiencing cancellation rates as high as 95 per cent.

Virtuoso's business told a much different story.

Across the tournament's 10 host cities represented in Virtuoso's data, the network recorded an increase of more than 50 per cent in ADR and a 190 per cent increase in sales.

Is fall the new summer?

Climate change is also reshaping when luxury travellers visit some of the world's most popular destinations, Kolner said.

Virtuoso's 2026 Impact Report found that 72 per cent of members believe climate is changing how their clients plan travel, while 82 per cent of partners are concerned about its impact.

Europe's intense summer heat has put that issue into sharp focus, but it hasn't diminished overall demand.

European hotel bookings through Virtuoso are up 33 per cent so far this year, including during the summer months.

Instead, one notable change is the increasing popularity of shoulder-season travel.

September sales have nearly doubled over the past two years, and current 2026 booking patterns suggest September could actually outsell August this year – further evidence that the traditional European summer travel calendar is shifting.

AI: opportunity, not opponent

Artificial intelligence remains another major theme for Virtuoso, but Kolner characterized the technology less as a threat to advisors and more as an opportunity.

He drew parallels to predictions in the 1990s that the internet would eliminate travel agents – forecasts that ultimately failed to account for the value of professional expertise and human service.

Virtuoso's research indicates that optimism about AI remains high within its network, with nearly twice as many respondents viewing the technology as an opportunity rather than a threat.

The vast majority of Virtuoso members and partners are already using AI within their businesses, Kolner said.

Interestingly, beyond concerns about accuracy, some of the biggest questions surrounding AI centre on how businesses can maintain the right balance between technology and human interaction.

For Virtuoso, that distinction is particularly important in luxury travel, where technology may streamline predictable or repetitive work, but highly-personalized human service remains central to the value advisors provide.

The K-shaped economy favours luxury

Virtuoso is also closely watching the continued expansion of the world's wealthiest demographic as economic growth becomes increasingly uneven.

Kolner highlighted the "K-shaped economy," in which different segments of the population are experiencing dramatically different financial trajectories.

Ultra-high-net-worth individuals – those with more than $30 million in assets – are growing at seven times the rate of the general population. Their numbers are expected to increase by 34 per cent by 2030.

North America remains a global wealth powerhouse, accounting for more than 40 per cent of the world's ultra-high-net-worth population while also recording one of the fastest rates of growth.

For Virtuoso, that expanding demographic represents an opportunity, particularly given the network's concentration of advisors specializing in affluent and ultra-affluent travellers and the higher-value bookings they generate.

In luxury, inefficiency may be the point

Yet amid all the discussion of AI, wealth and rapidly-evolving tech, Virtuoso sees one distinctly low-tech concept gaining value: human connection.

Kolner highlighted the growing interest in experiences that deliver "high emotional value," as well as the Gen Z concept of "friction-maxxing" – intentionally choosing a slower or less efficient way of doing something because the process itself carries meaning.

It could be as simple as calling a friend for advice rather than asking AI or sending a voice text.

Applied to travel, the idea speaks directly to the enduring role of the travel advisor.

As tech becomes increasingly capable of making transactions faster and more automated, the deliberately human elements of luxury travel – conversation, personal relationships, intuition and carefully considered recommendations – could become more valuable, not less.

Kolner pointed to a comment made earlier in the year by Virtuoso CEO Matthew Upchurch that captured the idea succinctly: “Maybe true luxury is what is purposely inefficient.”

Upchurch: human edge matters more than ever

As AI accelerates and tech reshapes nearly every corner of the travel industry, Virtuoso’s head, Matthew Upchurch, believes the future belongs not to those who try to compete with machines, but to advisors who understand precisely where human value matters most.

Also speaking at yesterday’s launch, Upchurch framed the industry’s current transformation as far more significant than another technology cycle.

Travel, he said, has entered a new “epoch” in which the definition of value itself is changing – and where trust, relationships and human connection could become increasingly valuable as technology becomes more powerful and widely accessible.

“Human advising stays meaningful even in the face of exponential technological change,” Upchurch told the room.

Additionally, as technology becomes democratized and traditionally differentiating tools become available to everyone, competitive advantages built around technology will become harder to defend.

For Virtuoso advisors, Upchurch sees that shift as an opportunity.

As AI increasingly handles predictable tasks, the value of an advisor will rise in moments where travellers need something tech cannot easily replicate: judgment, reassurance, emotional intelligence, advocacy and trust.

“What we know is that as AI accelerates, value will change and shift. But we also know that it clusters. It clusters in moments when trust matters most, decisions feel high stakes, emotions are elevated, and complexity is real,” he said.

“These are the moments that clients remember and pay a premium for, and that's when authentic human connection becomes a compelling competitive mode.”

Humans lead the dance

Upchurch rejected the idea that the industry must choose between technology and humanity.

Instead, he described the relationship as complementary – provided people remain in control.

“This isn't a tennis match with technology on one side and humanity on the other,” he said. “It's more like a dance. But there's an important rule in our dance. We, humans, lead.”

Virtuoso intends to participate aggressively in today’s technological transformation.

Upchurch revealed that the network has spent the past seven months developing proprietary intelligence capabilities using leading AI models combined with Virtuoso’s own data, systems and accumulated knowledge.

“What we're really talking about is collective Virtuoso intelligence, powered by AI,” he said.

The technology is being designed to work alongside platforms agencies already use rather than replace them, with potential applications spanning advisors, agency owners, preferred partners and Virtuoso’s own teams.

For advisors, that could eventually mean asking the system highly-specific questions – such as identifying Virtuoso-approved hotels in Paris, within walking distance of the Eiffel Tower that offer particular room views, amenities and Michelin-starred dining – rather than manually piecing together information from multiple sources.

Agency owners could use the technology to identify training opportunities based on an advisor’s previous education, sales and specialization, while partners could analyze existing promotions to find opportunities to differentiate their offers.

The long-term possibilities extend beyond prompts to workflows, integrations, dashboards and agentic solutions.

“Ultimately, all of this is about creating a better starting point for everyone to apply your own wisdom,” Upchurch said.

“We’re in the human connection business"

Ultimately, Upchurch’s vision for the future circles back to an idea he said crystallized for him 15 years ago after hearing researcher and author Brené Brown (who served as this year’s keynote presenter) speak about vulnerability and connection.

After that presentation, an attendee challenged him on what vulnerability had to do with selling travel.

His answer became a philosophy that he believes is even more relevant in an AI-driven world.

“We say we're in the travel business, but really, I think we're in the human connection business. We just happen to express it through travel,” Upchurch recalled.

For Upchurch, the travel advisor profession’s resilience over the years offers evidence that human expertise can thrive alongside technological disruption rather than be displaced by it.

“Here we are, 15 years later, with a profession that has thrived because we listened to our intuition, we had confidence in our value, and collaborated to compete with tech and financial scale,” he said. “We did it together.”

Making Canada’s voice heard

Virtuoso Travel Week actually kicked off with some pre-events over the weekend, including Community Globetrotting, an interactive trade show and supplier showcase, as well as the Travel Tech Summit, which brought technology leaders, venture capitalists, innovators and travel pros together to examine how emerging tools can make business more efficient while enabling more personalized experiences.

“Tech is a big theme this year,” said Canada’s Karen Hardie, pointing to Virtuoso’s new technology capabilities.

Sustainability will also take the spotlight, especially at Virtuoso’s “Under One Sky” luncheon, which celebrates advisors, community members, and preferred partners who champion eco-friendly practices

But beneath the tech, sustainability and Vegas sparkle is the real currency of Virtuoso Travel Week: face time.

The week gives advisors access to one-on-one meetings with some of the world’s leading luxury suppliers, alongside networking opportunities and plenty of over-the-top parties.

Sharing the Canadian perspective, Hardie emphasized the importance of showing up and being seen.

“It’s important for us to remind the world that [Canada] is a distinct and different country,” she said, “and while we love being part of North America, there is a unique opportunity that exists for our members within Canada to meet with other members and partners from around the world.”

Stay tuned for more of PAX's on-the-ground coverage from Virtuoso Travel Week in Las Vegas.  

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