Solo Episode | It’s not what you do, it’s what you do it for & The Virtuoso Decision

This episode is solo. And something I’m going to do more of, in addition to the interviews/conversations you’ve become used to here. In this episode I’m going to answer a question I’m getting a lot lately, whether via email, linkedin messages from peers, even when I sit down to lunch with a friend in the business I haven’t seen in a few months … which is, the business decision I made earlier this Spring, to resign my travel agency from Virtuoso, the preeminent professional network in luxury travel that I’d been a part of for 14 years. I’m hearing that a lot of you are also currently evaluating some of your memberships and affiliations. There’s a lot in flux at the moment, in our business of travel, on the agency side, on the aviation side, and on the hotel side. The whole pie. Agencies are getting bigger, expanding internationally, pyramid’ing beneath, selling to banks, coalescing for clarity, or power, consortiums feel catch all … and trying to catch it all. Preferred programs were created in a time when the term host agency didn’t exist. Now it does, and hotels are feeling the strain. But behind the 8-ball. I could go on. But instead of going on, and paying handsomely while doing so, I decided I wanted off the barreling train to who knows where. Next stop. Not sure what it is, but OK with stepping off and just observing for a while, from a new vantage point, one that is different and of my choosing. It’s almost like there’s so much new and it’s not a question of what I want to belong to in terms of a consortia, or what I want to integrate in terms of AI. It’s, right now, I don’t want a consortia because I don’t see one that makes sense. I don’t want AI because I don’t see it making sense. Rather than try to make it make sense, which is a choice, it’s also OK to choose to sit back and say hey this doesn’t feel right in my bones, and then not. Like, you can do that too. If a consortia makes sense for your business, stay. If AI makes sense for your business, learn. I’m using those 2 examples, but they’re the biggest examples to make a point with. Fill in your blank.Because it’s not what you do, it’s what you do it for.