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One of our most asked questions at SmartFlyer remains, “what does a luxury travel advisor do?” To sum it up succinctly, since our founding in 1990, it’s been our mission to help you see the world differently.
In service of this ongoing mission, every January, our team of savvy luxury travel advisors is paired with a discerning group of global partners to partake in our annual agency-wide summit, SmartFlyer CORE. This three-day event is chock full of programming that aims to create an elevated travel experience for our clients. Curious to learn more about what that actually means? Join us for a peek behind the curtain as we reveal a bit of the magic.
CORE: What’s in a name?
The concept of “CORE” was inspired by an acronym that encapsulates the pillars critical to the evolution of the SmartFlyer platform: Collaboration, Originality, Relationships, and Education. CORE symbolizes not just these principles, but the fabric on which our community has been woven. In more ways than one, this gathering feels more and more like a family reunion with each passing year.
During our seventh iteration of CORE, we were thrilled to welcome our most diverse mix of partners yet. We were thrilled to have SmartFlyer travel advisors and partners hailing from as far as Cape Town, Hong Kong, Sydney, Bangkok, Cairo, Madrid, Bogota, and beyond. These hand-selected partners span the hotel, cruise, destination management company, villa rentals, representation company, and technology spaces. Having this broad range of guests empowers what our luxury travel advisors do best: build relationships.
Four Seasons Hotel Nashville
When it came to deciding where we’d host SFCORE23, the choice was obvious. Our team craves newness, so the recently opened Four Seasons Hotel Nashville allowed us to host our attendees at a property that none of our advisors or partners had yet visited. The property offers a truly authentic Nashville experience where guests are invited to deeply connect with the creative spirit of the city, its energetic music scene, and the inspiration behind songwriting. Four Seasons Hotel Nashville is the perfect launch pad to discover downtown Nashville’s rich stories, complete with all the creature comforts if you prefer to stay on property, including a restaurant helmed by Michelin-starred chef, Aniello Turco.
Breakout Discussions
In the same spirit of ensuring that every client itinerary is customized, we infuse that ethos in our design of CORE each year. We dedicate a portion of the program to breakout discussions–bookable in our CORE app–that allow our guests to delve further into their areas of expertise. This year, that culminated in panels covering Africa, Asia, accessible and inclusive travel, bucket list travel, Europe, and mission-driven brands. Some of our most impactful takeaways from these sessions came from the Q&A portion at the conclusion of each session where we went even deeper into conversations surrounding the future of travel.
What does a luxury travel advisor do?
If you already work with a travel agent, you likely know that their area of genius is problem-solving. But what you may not know about what a luxury travel agent does is how deeply relationships power each and every aspect of your trip. SmartFlyer CORE is a forum for deepening existing relationships and developing new ones amongst colleagues and partners alike.
Through our Morning Study Hall session in addition to several other networking opportunities throughout the show, our team gets to know the General Managers, Directors of Sales, and even Owners of some of the world’s most sought-after hotels and destinations. Creativity was on full display during CORE 2023 with our beloved evening activation: the Relationship Dinner. Here, your travel advisor is paired with a partner that best matches their book of business for a night out! Valentina de Santis, owner of Grand Hotel Tremezzo and Passalaqua, flew in two of her chefs from Lake Como to put on a dazzling evening of homemade pasta and the world-renowned golden risotto. Abercrombie & Kent partnered with a local chef Johnny Haffner.
365 Report: Travel Trends
With an audience of data-driven hospitality professionals, our year in review–known as the 365 Report–is one of the most highly-anticipated elements of CORE each year. Chief Operating Officer and Managing Partner Erina Pindar shared her analysis of 2022 through a series of fascinating findings, including our top-booked properties. The essence of what a luxury travel advisor does is wrapped up in providing vetted recommendations that are both tailored to clients’ unique preferences but also offer optimal value in the face of a changing landscape. The following trends are representative of this human touch.
Travelers are eager to cross off bucket list trips whether that be an African safari, Southeast Asia honeymoon, Australia anniversary trip, Maldives family adventure, or, an Amazonian expedition cruise. The spend per trip has increased in cadence with a longer length of stay which is a trend that’s here to stay.
Italy, France, and, Greece are our top-booked destinations. The Amalfi Coast remains a top requested spot with staples like Casa Angelina and newcomers like Borgo Santandrea in high demand.
Morocco represents our highest number of bookings with a ground operator.
Yachting requests are up with clients interested in taking advantage of this mode of travel to set sail around places like the British Virgin Islands, the Mediterranean, Fiji, and across the South Pacific.
Incentive travel and small corporate retreats are back. Top-requested destinations for these types of trips include Florida, Mexico, and the Caribbean, with properties such as Faena Hotel Miami Beach, Rosewood Mayakoba, and Kimpton Seafire Grand Cayman ranking as popular spots.
Paris is booming! Cheval Blanc Paris, Ritz Paris, and La Réserve Paris Hotel and Spa are each top-booked SmartFlyer properties.
Speaker Series
Following our review of the year, our host, Mark Jeffries, took our audience into a panel paired with a fireside chat. “The Economy’s Effect on the Luxury Marketplace” was a discussion spanning the travel agency, global hotel brand, tourism board, and hospitality analytics perspectives. Michael Holtz (SmartFlyer Founder and CEO), Ben Trodd (Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts Senior Vice President), Adrienne (Visit Music City), and Jan Freitag (CoStar). Shortly thereafter, Flora Stubbs, Executive Editor at Travel + Leisure took us through her perspective on storytelling.
A Dash of Nashville Magic
With a city as effervescent as Nashville as our home base for CORE, we were inspired by the challenge to honor Music City’s creative spirit. While you can’t avoid a trip or two to Broadway (if you saw us at Tootsie’s, no, you didn’t), we knew that we wanted to infuse live music into every element of the program possible. That extended into each morning breakfast with the Four Seasons Hotel Nashville brokering collaborations with a series of local artists to help us kick off the day.
In perhaps our most ambitious ode to a host city yet, we had a big secret up our sleeves for the afternoon of our final day of CORE. After we broke from the Speaker Series, guests gathered in the Four Seasons Hotel Nashville lobby where they were surprised by the arrival of the Tennessee State University drumline. Forty-five TSU students led us through the closed-down street from Four Seasons Hotel Nashville to the Country Music Hall of Fame with unmatched energy. We wrapped the afternoon over lunch while listening to singer-songwriter Jon Randall perform before the Nashville skyline.
Disco Cowboy
There are few things we love more than a themed party, so we were sure to shut down CORE in style. With the theme “disco cowboy” laid down across our serpentine, sequin-clad tables, we dined and danced the night away. In true SmartFlyer style, a bit of final flair was had with a local drag Dolly Parton performance followed by a burger and beers outpost in Four Seasons Hotel Nashville’s back of house.
Get in Touch
We hope that this recap answered the age-old question of “what does a luxury travel advisor do?” as we delved into our SmartFlyer CORE program. Or, maybe you’re a traveler eager to partner with a luxury travel agent to plan your next trip; we can help with that. And watch out, because next year, we’ll be taking CORE to London!
