Virtuoso put its 2026 numbers on a Las Vegas stage last week. The top of the travel market is booming, and it is leaving the rest of the industry behind.
What Virtuoso Presented In Las Vegas
I spent last week at Virtuoso Travel Week, which ran August 8 through August 14 across the Bellagio, Aria, Vdara, and The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. It is the largest annual gathering in luxury travel, pulling advisors and hotel, cruise, and destination partners from more than 100 countries into a few cavernous ballrooms for a week of 1:1 appointments. I run a Virtuoso travel agency, so I have both a seat in that room and a stake in what the data says as do most of our readers.
The state of the network presentation is organized into three buckets: by the numbers, on the mind of Virtuoso’s leadership team, and trends Virtuoso is watching. Rather than focus on a couple of key statistics, the team’s observations were more about the collective understanding of a wide range of data points together. The key takeaway was that the luxury tier has decoupled from the rest of the travel business in what many have agreed is a K-shaped economy. Some of the broader hospitality industry spent the summer explaining soft demand and missing forecasts (especially in the Med), the top of the market was posting growth numbers that mirror what we saw coming out of COVID, a generational growth period in travel.
Clients Are Booking Earlier And Paying More, Allegedly
Examining the metrics requires looking at the rates (ADR – Average Daily Rate.) Bookings at an ADR of $1,500/nt or higher are up 37% so far in 2026, growing at roughly twice the pace of lower priced hotel bookings. That could be a story about inflation lifting all boats, my suspicion is that this is at least partly the case. Virtuoso’s research (far more robust than my hunches) says it’s more about the ceiling rising faster than the floor. This is expected in a market where the customer base is expanding at the top end of the economy. That increase outpaces any and all inflation rates by a lot and it’s not particularly close.
Forward bookings are even more telling, not just for Virtuoso’s network, but this is what I have seen in my agency too. For the first half of 2026, preferred bookings (Virtuoso’s hotel program and network) for stays 1-2 years out are up 50% versus the same period in 2025. People are not just spending more, they are committing further out, which is the single healthiest signal a travel business can get. That’s not just a statement about travel in a vacuum, it’s also about the wider economy. Travelers feel confident enough in the future of their financial positions that they aren’t afraid of booking well into the future.
However, this is also where my own data diverges. We have also seen close-in bookings up in a way that has become a trend over the last two years but the window is closing shorter and shorter. We have clients looking for hotels in the Hamptons ten days out, Greek yachts inside of a week, and Antarctica bookings (our specialty) are picking up for travel yet this year. Most travelers taking an expedition from the United States to the southern-most continent plan well in advance, especially considering the distance to Buenos Aires, Argentina or Punta Arenas, Chile. We are pacing well ahead of prior years for these last minute once-in-a-lifetime trips to my dismay and at last in part disagreeing with Virtuoso’s broader conclusions.
Seasonal pacing follows the same shape. Comparing the first half of 2026 to the first half of 2025, fall 2026 sales are up 69% on a 59% increase in bookings, and festive season (typically mid-December to the first week of January) 2026 sales are up 56% on a 65% increase in bookings. Europe continues to absorb an enormous share of that money, with sales at preferred European hotels up an average of 33% across the first half of the year, though as we have prior reported on Live And Let’s Fly, that’s more likely to be the North American market in those cities than European travelers. Shoulder season has also moved with September bookings over the years 2026-2028 well ahead of traditional expectations.
In the past couple of years, the best single day for bookings was January 31st, likely tied to “wave season” promotions that end on the same day. But while that day was strong this year too, it was May 26th this year so far, and it’s entirely possible we still haven’t seen the best day for bookings in 2026.
The World Cup Was Supposed To Be A Windfall
There was incredible attention placed on the World Cup and hope that 12 host cities would see a huge bump. The 2026 FIFA World Cup was pitched to North American hoteliers as a once-in-a-generation demand event, and for most of them it was a bust as this (and other sites) have detailed over the summer. Roughly 80% of hotel operators in host cities reported bookings below expectations, with NPR reporting that Kansas City saw 85% to 90% of properties underperform projections. Fewer international visitors attended the games (likely for reasons both political, and of cost), and the ones who did skewed toward day trips rather than long, high-spend stays according to the data.
However, it appears differently through the Virtuoso lens. Across (10) US host cities in the network, average June 2026 ADR climbed 53.5% and sales climbed 119.6%. The luxury tier more than doubled its business while the broader hotel industry had issues putting heads in beds. This microcosm was in the same cities, on the same dates, but exhibited wildly different outcomes.
That gap seems to solidify and support with data not only the K-shaped economy but put numbers to anecdotal suspicions. From what I can tell, mass market travel demand in the US is genuinely soft right now, however, luxury travel demand is not. Treating them as one market leads to bad conclusions but it also requires analysts to look at the make-up of a major hotel’s portfolio. As IHG continues to grow Kimpton, Regent, and Six Senses, they could be the one to watch. Likewise, Hyatt is going to have to come up with more luxury answers to accompany its recent push into all-inclusives.
Advisors Are Confident But Getting Older
Global Virtuoso member sentiment is 68% optimistic, 30% neutral or unsure, and about 2% pessimistic. That’s high confidence considering global challenges in both economic and political terms. Optimism peaked near 70% in 2023 coming out of COVID and has barely moved since, while the neutral bucket has been climbing steadily off its 2023 lows. Advisors are still doing well and are less certain than they were about why that’s the case. Personally, I have doubted this economy as (in statistical terms) the US has been overdue for a recession. The K-shaped economy might be providing that recession for the lower end of the market while the upper end is somehow impervious.
According to Virtuoso, Gen X makes up 42% of Virtuoso members and baby boomers another 36%. Millennials account for 16%, Gen Z for 3%, with the silent generation filling in the remaining 3%. Surprisingly, just 39% of the network is boomer or older and only 19% is millennial or younger. This is a business with an extraordinary book of relationships and no obvious plan for who inherits it as those older agency owners look to exit in the coming years. The luxury advisory model runs on trust that takes years to build, and you cannot hire your way out of a succession gap in a single cycle leading to caution that a sea change could be ahead.
Virtuoso is clearly aware of this gap, they called it out in front of 6,000 attendees both members and vendors alike.
AI, Climate Are Leading Anxieties
When Virtuoso asked the network what worries them about artificial intelligence and the answers split neatly. Accuracy and reliability of AI-generated information tops the list for members at 62%, well ahead of preferred partners at 49%. We have seen this at Scott & Thomas too. Queries arrive daily for services or products that are not offered – less from an area of AI invention and more from dated information or broad assumptions. Finding the right balance between AI tools and human judgment lands at 50% for members and 53% for partners. Maintaining a personal touch and human connection comes in at 45% and 50% respectively.
While advisors are worried about AI accuracy, suppliers are worried about AI’s lack of human touch. Both concerns are reasonable, and neither is really about whether AI gets plays a role for consumers and industry professionals – it already does. My own read is that AI compresses the value of information retrieval to nearly zero and raises the value of judgment, access, and accountability. Advisors have an enhanced role as a tastemaker and connected advocate than a specific version of Google. That’s welcome news for a network built on preferred relationships and bad news for anyone who is order taking or continually booking the same destinations, hotels, and products.
A high contingent (72%) of members say climate now affects how their clients plan travel, and 82% of partners say they are concerned about its impact on their business. As mentioned here before, however, in our experience, clients often have a preference but still make purchase decisions based solely on classic factors of availability, timing, cost, service, and product offering. It’s important until it comes time to close a booking.
However, vendors should be more concerned with the numbers growing. As I outlined last week, heat is rewriting European summer and American approaches to visiting during the high season, storm seasons are rewriting Caribbean and Gulf itineraries (though this season is forecast to be quieter in the Caribbean.) Vendors need to consider how they alter their products to serve customers with those concerns.
The Customer Base Keeps Growing
There’s an economic truth that could be found in all of this: there are simply more wealthy people every year. Virtuoso showed the ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) population growing 7x faster than the global population, a projected 34% increase in that population by 2030, and North America holding 40.3% of the world’s UHNW individuals. If the lower end of the economy experiences a recession, this will increase the US’ already world-leading market advantage. Knight Frank’s 2026 Wealth Report tells a compatible story, counting 162,191 new UHNW individuals over five years, or 89 people per day crossing the $30 million threshold, an unprecedented run.
Virtuoso also argued that travel and tourism now contributes to GDP at 3.6x the broader economic average, which is a more aggressive framing than the WTTC forecast of the sector outgrowing the wider economy by 1.5x over the next decade. Regardless of the data source and which is more accurate, the message is clear with regard to the direction and swinging weight of travel on economies.
Conclusion
The honest summary of Virtuoso Travel Week 2026 is that luxury travel is having a very good year in a travel market that is potentially struggling. For readers of Live And Let’s Fly this is plain to see with American Airlines’ “pivot to premium” or United and Delta ramping up delivery of premium-heavy narrowbodies. ADR is up, forward bookings are up, clients are committing years ahead as well as closing more business close-in, and the segment printed triple digit growth during an event that disappointed nearly every other hotelier in the country. This will make forecasting complicated for widely integrated brands.
An advisor base where 39% is Baby Boomer or older has a handoff problem it has not been solved. I personally continue to explore ways to do this and continue to struggle with bridging the gap between mature businesses in older models and how they fit into the new world of travel. Virtuoso believes the future is bright, and I agree.
What do you think?
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