Eye on Travel

Peter Greenberg Worldwide—Virtuoso Travel Week—August 19, 2017

Locations in this article:  Berlin, Germany Las Vegas, NV

This week, the Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio Show broadcasts from the 17th Annual Virtuoso Travel Week. More than 6,000 leaders in the travel industry have an unprecedented 350,000 meetings—which works out to about 2.9 years of networking—and a few billion dollars of luxury travel business. Joining Peter will be Virtuoso CEO Matthew Upchurch with a front line report on the state of the travel industry. Arnie Weissmann, Editor-in-Chief of Travel Weekly, talks about travel in the era of Trump and how/whether foreigners still look upon the U.S. as welcoming. Scott McCartney, Travel Editor for The Wall Street Journal, discusses the labyrinth of basic economy fares, and some insidious—and hidden—new airline “service” fees. Manfredi Lefebvre d’Ovidio, Chairman of Silversea Cruises, talks about the boom in five-star luxury cruises. Pierre Parisien, Senior Director of Show Quality at Cirque du Soleil, talks about celebrating the oldest Cirque show “O,” which opened nearly 20 years ago. Costas Christ, Editor-at-Large for National Geographic Traveler and Global Sustainability Strategist for Virtuoso Travel Network, discusses the pillars of sustainable travel and the difficulties of training employees and educating the public. Plus, the founder of Roomer talks about innovating the underworld of hotel cancellation policies. His app, Roomer, connects hotel cancellations with people who want to buy them. So less travelers are losing money due to unforeseen circumstances and hotels are still making incremental revenue. There’s all of this and more as the Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio Show broadcasts from Virtuoso Travel Week at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.

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Check out this week’s guest list, listen to the latest all-local podcast, and play the full show below. For the most up-to-date information on travel in a 40-minute podcast, check out Travel Today with Peter Greenberg available on iTunes and Stitcher.