What Is Virtuoso Wanderlist?

Many of us dream about travel, we may even have a bucket list, but do you have a Wanderlist? One of the most common threads amongst all of the people I speak to is how little time they have and how they would like to travel more but just can’t get organized. It seems that getting the family together to create great memories gets harder and harder as life goes by. So many of us have big dreams and many of those dreams are to travel but it seems to be such a challenge to actually make a plan to make it happen. Well it looks like the travel industry has a new tool to change all of that. Virtuoso, a consortium of travel advisors who do a global business of over $26 billion in transactions annually has created a tool and it is called Virtuoso Wanderlist.

Designed very much like the way we use Netflix, Wanderlist helps users create a road map to a lifetime of travel. Nikki Ekstein from Bloomberg says “it lets travelers create a virtual bucket list through a highly visual, lightly game-like survey. Then it syncs each user’s answers with those of their most frequent travel companions—family, friends, or a partner—in order to suggest trips that’ll make everyone happy.” Virtuoso Chief Executive Officer and Chairman Matthew Upchurch says “think of it as a little portal for your dreams.” He views Wanderlist as a tool for busy people to map out their travel priorities and for travel advisors to strategically execute them. “It’s like the leisure equivalent of a financial adviser. If you have a framework to help optimize your money, why not have one for your leisure time and spending?”

How Wanderlist works

The process is quite simple, just three steps: Curate, Explore, Collaborate.

First, your Wanderlistlist guide will set up your account and send out to each traveler in your group their own invitation to set up their sign-in. Once your account is created, you and your companion travelers (family, partner, friends) will begin to curate your own travel desires. You will be delving into destination, experiences, travel styles and preferences. Wanderlist also wants to know what your important dates are like birthdays, anniversaries, retirement and other important events in your life as these milestones are great opportunities for celebrating through travel. You will dive into over 160 destination on the Wanderlist platform, each with videos, photos and descriptions. You rate the destinations by indicating a it’s a top pick, want to visit, want to return, unsure, already visited, or a no thanks. Once you have gone through destinations you can move on to experiences.

Curate Your List

Curation should be a thoughtful process. In order to get the most out of your Wanderlist analysis you should allow yourself to spend some time and thought into your choices. Think about your travel style, what are your priorities and what interests you when you travel. From chocolate tours to wine tastings Wanderlist leaves no stone unturned. The curation process is great to do on your own or together as a family. Each user can curate from a mobile device, tablet or desktop computer. My suggestion is pour a glass of wine and enjoy the journey.

Explore:

Once you curate your destinations and interests you can explore, what I believe is one of Wanderlist’s most powerful characteristics, a virtual library of videos, articles, music, background info and links all enriching your knowledge on each destination. And within each destination you’ll discover specific activities they offer, helping you create your “must see and do” list. Wanderlist is accessible at any time as long as you have an account.

Collaborate:

So now that you have gotten everyone in the family to curate their travel desires in Wanderlist, your travel advisor will go over your choices and begin to analyze your results. Once they are finished they will reach out to schedule a one on one meeting in person or virtually via video conference. During this reveal session they will share their conclusions and recommendations for creating your travel portfolio.

In your analysis you will discover side-by-side comparisons of everyone in your group. Upchurch goes on to say “the benefit is that it creates conversations between travel advisors and clients. It creates a real-time profile of the client and helps advisors know much more about their clients.” These comparisons work as a great conversation starter for what you all have in common, understand differences, enabling you to prioritize those destinations you share in common. The analysis allows your travel advisor to better prioritize for the group, syncing up your travel interests.

In this session you will not only discover what you have in common but perhaps more importantly what differences appear. Here is what one Wanderlist user had to say about their experience:

“What your kids dream about might surprise you. I had all of my kids participate in Wanderlist. For my youngest daughter two top picks emerged – Disney and Thailand. My advisor asked me “Disney is pretty obvious, but why do you think she chose Thailand?” I had no idea. Then it dawned on me. We have a honeymoon picture of us with elephants hanging on our wall. I never knew this photo quietly impacted my daughter. Needless to say we will be creating new memories with HER in Thailand!”

You can expect to discuss priorities for the group, differences, personal schedules, destination seasonality, estimated budget and cost savings. Your advisor will let you know how much time this meeting will run but you can expect at least an hour to discuss results.

The Benefits of Virtuoso Wanderlist:

You will have an answer for “What are my travel goals?”

Through the curation process with your Wanderlist guide, you will end up with a road map in form of your Wanderlist travel portfolio for the next 3 to 5 years. It is a visualization on paper of your buckets list that has your preferred destinations, travel schedule, and the knowledge that your travel companions are all on board.

Once you have agreed upon a plan your travel advisor will produce your Wanderlist into a hardcopy portfolio.

For more on Virtuoso Wanderlist check out our videos here.