Las Vegas - 5
This year, Girlahead got into Vegas a day early, intentionally, for the 700-strong AI
summit, put together by Gilad Berenstein, who cautioned we're entering the era of small and medium-sized business adaptation of AI. Microsoft predicted AI will double productivity in five years. AI will not replace personalization. The model will flip to consumer control. Travel advisors’ advantage is what they actually know.
Yaroslav Gorovy, producer of MARY GOSTELOW GIRLAHEAD PODCAST, presented Almont’s new platform for advisor simplification – see him above. At VTW 2027, there will be a bifurcation of tech, one panel explaining now and the other looking ahead.
The AI session led into Sunday’s traditional opening session, 4-6pm. Kempinski cleverly switched from sponsoring the final gala, as in 2025, to getting lead billing at the opening session, and Kempinski CEO Barbara Muckermann – high profile as always - thus had an attentive audience. Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection’s Jeremy McClellan spoke, as did Virtuoso’s new CCO Tristan Dowell. David Kolner, theatrical as always, rushed tha overall sales for the network year-to-date are up 20.8% globally, with hotels up 24.5%, and wellness travel is seeing 28% growth. Across the spectrum, reservations being booked one-2 years out are up 50%.
The afternoon session crescendoed to Dr Brené Brown, an emotion professor whose very presence inspired popstar swoons from some female millennials in the audience. Courage requires vulnerability was her message, brilliantly delivered but possibly too long for non-swooners.
And the entire VTW rose to a memorable finale, the gala, with a l-o-n-g rollcall of awards, including best brand hotel - Hawaii Big Island’s Mauna Lani, Auberge Collection;
best independent hotel – Amsterdam’s De L'Europe, and best new hotel - New York’s Faena (and hotelier of the year is Etienne Petitpez – Venice’s Airelles Palladio). After that, stoics managed the after-party. Others went to bed.
