Forty years after Chairman and CEO Matthew Upchurch first took the reins at Virtuoso, the luxury travel network has opened its 2026 Australia and New Zealand Forum in Auckland with questions to ponder in an era of AI and disruption.
The ongoing conflict in the Middle East was the unavoidable elephant in the room when more than 150 Australian and New Zealand agency owners and Preferred partners gathered at Park Hyatt Auckland on Monday to begin the four-day 2026 Virtuoso Australia and New Zealand Forum.
Opening the event, Virtuoso’s regional General Manager for Australia and New Zealand, Greg Treasure, acknowledged it directly. “We know you’re all doing it very tough at the moment,” he told the room. “PTSD keeps being thrown around. But being part of a community like ours really does become our bedrock of resilience.” Virtuoso has launched a Situation Response Resource Centre, with around 100 partners feeding real-time updates on the conflict, Treasure said.
But Treasure wasn’t dwelling on the disruption. The network is on solid ground with total AU/NZ Preferred partner sales across the region growing 13.1 per cent in 2025. Talking about the success, he likened Virtuoso’s 98-member locations across Australia to 98 Michelin-star restaurants, each with skilled advisors working with the best ingredients in the business.
The question for the network that mattered, he said, borrowing from hospitality entrepreneur Will Guidara’s keynote at last year’s Virtuoso Travel Week, was simple: “How did we make that customer feel?”
The numbers behind the confidence
Despite current uncertainty, the outlook for the luxury sector remains bright. Treasure cited IATA forecasts pointing to more than 10 per cent growth in premium cabin travel for 2026 and beyond, and around 334,000 high-net-worth individuals (HNWI) in Australia, up 3 per cent to September 2025. Even more optimistically, a 27 per cent increase in HNWI is projected in New Zealand by 2028.
But he was more interested in what sits behind the numbers. “We are absolutely going to stay in our lane,” he said. “We’re going to raise the bar. We’re going to continue to champion the role of travel advisor as a profession.”
‘Beware the threat of sameness’
David Kolner, Virtuoso’s Executive Vice President of Strategic Communications, followed with a trends session built on network data and member sentiment. A Virtuoso pulse survey in January found 71 per cent of members feeling optimistic about their business, with Australia and New Zealand above the network’s global average at 76 per cent.
Members pointed to healthy client budgets, strong business performance and a solid leads and booking pipeline as the top reasons for their confidence. Preferred partner optimism also rose, up to 62 per cent from 56 per cent. Acknowledging the now, Kolner said a second sentiment check would be conducted during the Forum to capture how the room is feeling.
Beyond the current state of affairs, Kolner had a deeper question for the room. If everybody has access to the same technology, the same data, the same language, what actually makes your business different? “Beware the threat of sameness,” he said.
The average daily rate at Virtuoso preferred partner hotels in the US hit more than US$2,000 (AU$2,850) in December, with year-on-year growth of 5 to 15 per cent. But new entrants are coming for the luxury leisure market.
His message: plan for growth, but also for resilience.
From the summit of Everest to a school in Khumjung, Nepal
Peter Hillary, mountaineer, Himalayan Trust chair and son of legendary New Zealand explorer Sir Edmund Hillary, delivered the Forum’s keynote. Five Everest expeditions. A ski traverse of Antarctica. 108 schools were built across the Himalayas. But it was the schools, not the summits, that carried the most weight.
Hillary told the story of his father sitting with local Sherpa communities who told him, “Our children have eyes, and yet they cannot see. Would you build us a school?” Sir Edmund did. Then 41 more, along with hospitals and medical clinics across the Everest region.
“All travel, all exploration, is an opportunity to learn, to immerse ourselves in incredible environments, to make emotional connections with these places,” Hillary said. “It’s in all of our best interests that we preserve them, too.”
Challenged, copied and commoditised
Virtuoso Chair and CEO Matthew Upchurch closed the opening session, marking his 40th anniversary at the helm. He started with the region’s own trajectory: from 7 member agencies in 2004 to 62 members and 1,600 advisors—and what it says about the community. “People here were open, generous and willing to build something together,” he said. “They’re also very direct, which was absolutely amazing. That spirit of collaboration has always defined this region.”
“That success has led to three C’s,” Upchurch said. “Challenged, copied and commoditised.” A global network of members with high-net-worth clients is a serious competitive advantage, but the network is learning to be more regionally relevant. Australia and New Zealand has helped shape it.
Virtuoso’s new framework addresses quality, globalisation and entrepreneurship. “Virtuoso must stand for quality and excellence,” he said. Should every advisor be a Virtuoso advisor? Clearly not. The network has set new standards for advisor productivity, refreshed its membership agreements after 4 years of post-COVID work, and is now aligning its support by business model rather than geography. The balance between developing new advisors and supporting highly productive ones has also been clarified.
Upchurch pointed to the return of Dr Brené Brown as the keynote speaker for this year’s Virtuoso Las Vegas Travel Week in August. “When she spoke to us 15 years ago, when nobody knew who she was, she basically said that as technology would go deeper into every aspect of our lives, human beings would not only desire but literally crave authentic human connection,” he said.
“Look at us today. Think about all the times that we were written off by technology.”
“I think a lot of times people focus so much on what should change, but not enough on what shouldn’t change,” he said. “Not only not change, but go deeper into it. The problem is that clarity without capability is just a dream.”
Uncertainty is okay, he said, because mastery has nothing to do with control. “Control is an illusion anyway, but mastery is about readiness, responsiveness and trust in the systems in place.”
And with a nod to the AI era, Upchurch left the room with one line to sit with. “In a world where everybody’s trying to be efficient, the definition of luxury travel could be the things that are purposely inefficient.”
The 2026 Virtuoso Forum runs from 23 to 26 March at Park Hyatt Auckland in partnership with Tourism New Zealand.
KARRYON UNPACKS: The Middle East conflict is reshaping global travel flows, with demand redirecting toward Asia-Pacific. But the message from the stage was just as much about identity as opportunity: differentiate, deepen the human connection, and don’t let disruption distract from what already works.
