Luxury and experiential travel network Virtuoso hosted its first-ever Impact Summit from 2nd to 5th June at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise.
Drawing in 105 attendees from nearly 20 countries, the invitation-only summit brought together a curated group of Virtuoso’s most engaged sustainability-focused advisors and partners to discuss solutions for furthering progress around what were previously identified as the three pillars of sustainability: supporting local economies, celebrating culture and protecting the planet.
For two and a half days, Virtuoso fostered a collaborative environment for inspiring peer-to-peer discussions on best practices, industry challenges and new opportunities, while also enjoying and exploring the stunning surroundings of Lake Louise, Alberta.
Virtuoso vice-chair and sustainability strategist Jessica Hall Upchurch declared at the opening of the event: “Our efforts to educate advisors and amplify the work of our partners to Virtuoso travellers started 15 years ago,” she said. “Our principals when it comes to implementing sustainability in travel have always been ‘no shame, no blame’ and ‘start where you are,’ meaning we’d rather see 95 percent of the world take one step forward than five percent trying to get it perfect.”
She added that the idea of the Impact Summit was a seed planted over a decade ago and now it has grown and bloomed into a tangible reality that will make a difference in the industry.
Hall Upchurch said: “We all know travellers want a great experience, but making it easy for them to feel good about who they give their money to adds an emotional element that’s a powerful differentiator. This is a space for exchanging ideas, having future-focused discussions and engaging in meaningful collaborations. This event was designed to create stronger connections in our co-created ecosystem and to accelerate and amplify our collective journeys to making the world better.”
Making an impact from start to finish
The event’s positive impact began even before the Opening Session, as senior vice-president for global events Jennifer Campbell shared that, by using emissions data gathered from attendee travel and event operations, Virtuoso had offset 64.6 metric tons of CO₂ through Planetair’s verified Canada Tree Portfolio reforestation project, ensuring a carbon-neutral footprint for this year’s Impact Summit.
Vice-president for sustainability Javier Arredondo followed this up by moderating a panel of Virtuoso senior executives in which they provided a view into how the entire Virtuoso organisation supports, amplifies and incorporates sustainability into the group’s business practices and network offerings.
The panel included Chief Operating Officer Brad Bourland; Senior Vice President, Global Products Thatcher Brown; Senior Vice President, Global Marketing Helen McCabe-Young; and Senior Vice President, Global Events Jennifer Campbell.
With a schedule designed to ignite ideas and meaningful dialogue, the programming included three distinct panels aligned with Virtuoso’s core sustainability pillars.
An interactive Ideation Session followed each panel, where participants collaborated on key topics.
Virtuoso also leveraged cutting-edge AI technology to capture and analyse these discussions, resulting in multiple hours and hundreds of pages worth of insights to help shape and inform future initiatives.
A variety of guest speakers took the stage as well, including tech entrepreneur, investor and Virtuoso board member Gilad Berenstein, who discussed the role of AI in furthering sustainability efforts, and Chris Imbsen, director of sustainability for the World Travel and Tourism Council, who shared data and insights on the public and private sector’s support for sustainable tourism.
Virtuoso chairman and CEO Matthew D Upchurch, who also serves as WTTC’s vice chair of membership, as well as WTTC’s Together in Travel vice-chair and CEO of IC Bellagio Andrea Grisdale discussed their work lifting up and providing a voice to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that have an outsized role in serving the travel industry.
Virtuoso vice-president for global public affairs Misty Belles also led a panel of the aforementioned media in attendance, in addition to Marika Cain, editorial director of Virtuoso, The Magazine.
The conversation touched on best practices and language choices for communicating sustainability to readers, guests and travellers, how to tell more engaging sustainability stories and how companies can successfully become part of the sustainability conversation.
The Impact Summit was rounded out with Design Your Day activities each afternoon, in which attendees could choose from a variety of sustainability-focused activities such as hikes to Emerald Lake or Johnson Canyon, learning the process of making natural salves, volunteering with local charity Soup Sisters to combat food insecurity, a tour of Lake Louise’s water treatment plant or a warrior women tea ceremony.
