This year I went to my first Virtuoso Travel Week in August 2018. Did you know that I am now planning and booking travel? Where do you want to wander? Find more information about me and my luxury travel advising as an independent affiliate of CRUISE and RESORT, Inc with Virtuoso Luxury Travel Network on my new microsite!
Are you wondering what happened at the Virtuoso Travel Week conference in Las Vegas?
I made several videos to share about my experiences at the conference.
For the first two days, I went to three fantastic Professional Development seminars and to three Adventure Community Pavilions where I met the best suppliers providing experiences for our clients.
Media Matters: How to Land Yourself in the Papers (in a Good Way!)
Misty Ewing Belles
Virtuoso’s Managing Director of Global Public Relations – will share techniques for getting noticed by the media. This session includes tips for how to position yourself as a subject-matter expert and a valuable source for journalists. From pitching stories to handling interviews like a pro, Virtuoso PR will reveal best practices for landing yourself in the press. You’ll also learn what resources are available from Virtuoso as part of your membership, as well as how to translate press coverage into increased sales.
Lisa Niver and Misty Ewing Belles, Virtuoso Travel Week 2018
Six Steps to Effective, Retellable Stories by Jay Golden
The world is made up of stories. We tell stories to remember, stories to connect, and stories to persuade. But what are stories, really? And how can our own stories deliver our most critical insights, at the most essential times, to our most important audiences? Storytelling coach Jay Golden will lead a fun, highly interactive session that will take you deep into the realm of story. Largely based on Mr. Golden’s Journey Curve storytelling framework, the teachings of this course will help you find, shape, and effectively share your most important stories. Along the way, we’ll explore the science behind why stories work, explore techniques to make yours work better, and discuss various genres of stories that will help your audiences understand more deeply what you do in the world, and why it matters.
Video: Your Ticket to More Searches, More Credibility, and More Sales by Jill Schiefelbein
The way customers search for you and the services you provide has fundamentally changed. The information economy presents a new set of challenges for advisors that require you to use new techniques and personalized services to reach the minds and hearts of your buyers. To do this, you have to know how to communicate to both humans and computers. And you need to learn how to do this in the channel that gives you the most bang for your buck: video. This session outlines everything you need to know about making video a successful communication and marketing strategy for your business. From attracting new customers, gaining credibility and media exposure, and strengthening existing customer relationships, Jill Schiefelbein will provide multiple strategies, technologies, and tools that you can use and implement immediately.
The Virtuoso Adventure Travel Community focuses on partners who offer adventurous experiences that include physical activity, a connection with nature, and exploration of unique cultural experiences. Come join Adventure partners to learn about experiences for your most adventurous and active clients.
Matthew Upchurch said about his father: “My father was a pioneer in this business, and I am forever grateful that he introduced me to the world and this industry at such an early age,” said Matthew Upchurch. “He had a nose for knowing what the luxury traveler wanted, and it wasn’t necessarily the traditional refinement found in five-star hotels or transatlantic cruise liners. He knew the world offered more than that. His insatiable curiosity about the unknown, his passion for other people and their cultures, and his tendency to question conventional wisdom with a simple ‘why not?’ opened the door for others to experience countries that were not considered tourism-friendly yet. He left his mark on this industry that he loved so much.”
See more of our Vegas Adventures for Virtuoso Travel Week in PART TWO with more videos!
And remember: I am now planning and booking travel?
Where do you want to wander? Find more information about me and my luxury travel advising as an independent affiliate of CRUISE and RESORT, Inc with Virtuoso Luxury Travel Network on my new microsite!
Where did we stay for Virtuoso Travel Week? At ARIA!
Lisa Ellen Niver is an award-winning travel expert who has explored 102 countries and six continents. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she worked on cruise ships for seven years and backpacked for three years in Asia. She is the founder of the website WeSaidGoTravel which is read in 235 countries and was named #3 on Rise Global’s top 1,000 Travel Blogs. Niver is a speaker at the Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Dallas Travel and Adventure Shows for 2023. Her podcast, “Make Your Own Map,” has been watched in more than 11 countries on 4 continents. Niver is represented by Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary, Inc. Look for her memoir in Fall 2023 from Post Hill Press/Simon and Schuster.
You can find Lisa Niver talking travel on broadcast television at KTLA TV Los Angeles, Satellite Media Tours, The Jet Set TV and Orbitz travel webisodes as well as her YouTube channel, where her WeSaidGoTravel videos have nearly 2 million views.
With more than 150,000 followers across social media, she has hosted Facebook Live for USA Today 10best, is verified on Twitter and listed on IMDb, and is the Social Media Manager for the Los Angeles Press Club.
As a journalist, Niver has interviewed Deepak Chopra, Olympic medalists, and numerous bestselling authors and been invited to both the Oscars and the United Nations. She has been a judge for the Gracie Awards for the Alliance of Women in Media, and has run 15 travel competitions on her website, publishing over 2,500 writers and photographers from 75 countries.
For her print and digital stories as well as her television segments, she has been awarded three Southern California Journalism Awards and two National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards and been a finalist twenty times.
Niver has published more than 2000 articles, in more than three dozen magazines and journals
including National Geographic, Wired, Teen Vogue, HuffPost Personal, POPSUGAR, Ms. Magazine, Luxury Magazine, Smithsonian, Sierra Club, Saturday Evening Post, AARP, AAA Explorer Magazine, American Airways, Delta Sky, enRoute (Air Canada), Hemispheres, Jewish Journal, Myanmar Times, BuzzFeed, Robb Report, Scuba Diver Life, Ski Utah, Trivago, Undomesticated, USA Today, TODAY, Wharton Magazine, and Yahoo.
https://bit.ly/m/lisaniver
Awards
National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards
2021 Winner: Book Critic: Ms. Magazine “Untamed: Brave Means Living From the Inside Out”
2019 Winner: Soft News Feature for Film/TV: KTLA TV “Oscars Countdown to Gold with Lisa Niver”
2019 Finalist for: Soft News, Business/Music/Tech/Art
Southern California Journalism Awards
2022 Finalist: Book Criticism
2021 Winner: Technology Reporting
2021 Finalist: Book Criticism
2020 Winner: Print Magazine Feature: Hemispheres Magazine, “Painter by the Numbers, Rembrandt”
2020 Finalist: Online Journalist of the Year, Activism Journalism, Educational Reporting, Broadcast Lifestyle Feature
2019 Finalist: Broadcast Television Lifestyle Segment for “Ogden Ski Getaway”
2018 Finalist: Science/Technology Reporting, Travel Reporting, Personality Profile
2017 Winner: Print Column “A Journey to Freedom over Three Passovers”
Social Media Presence
YouTube Channel: We Said Go Travel (1.7 million views)
Short form video:TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, YouTube Shorts
Twitter: lisaniver (90,000 followers)
Instagram: lisaniver (24,000 followers)
Pinterest: We Said Go Travel (20,000 followers and over 70,000 monthly views)
Facebook: lisa.niver (5,000 followers); We Said Go Travel (3,000 followers)
LinkedIn: lisaellenniver (9000 contacts)
