Virtuoso appointed Kara Glamore as General Manager for Australia and New Zealand in early 2025 and sent her on a regional tour connecting with member agencies and hotel partners across both markets. The tour marks the network's first coordinated leadership presence in AUNZ since the previous GM departed fourteen months ago.
Glamore met with Virtuoso's 78 member agencies in Australia and 22 in New Zealand, alongside preferred hotel partners including Rosewood, Belmond, and Accor's luxury portfolio. The tour focused on operational alignment rather than acquisition — no new member agencies signed during the visits, and no new preferred partnerships were announced. Virtuoso's AUNZ membership has remained flat since Q3 2024, while competitor networks Signature and Travel Leaders Group each added four agencies in the region over the same period.
The timing matters because Virtuoso's Asia-Pacific booking volume grew 11% year-over-year through Q1 2025, but AUNZ specifically grew only 6% — below the network's global average of 9%. North America and Europe are pulling harder. The AUNZ lag isn't catastrophic, but it's visible, and fourteen months without a regional GM created drift. Agencies that need daily support don't wait; they evaluate alternatives. Glamore's tour is remedial work disguised as introductory.
Two operational realities will determine whether this stabilizes AUNZ or merely slows the slide. First, Virtuoso's preferred partner roster in Asia-Pacific still skews heavily toward North American and European brands expanding into the region — 64% of AUNZ preferred hotels are foreign-owned, versus 41% in Virtuoso's European markets. Local operators with strong domestic client bases don't need Virtuoso's distribution as badly, which limits the network's leverage when recruiting high-volume agencies. Second, Virtuoso's advisor education platform rolled out new Asia-Pacific content only in March 2025, five months after competitors launched similar programs. The content gap matters less than the signal: AUNZ wasn't prioritized until booking growth slowed.
Glamore's background tilts corporate rather than leisure — she spent nine years at American Express Global Business Travel before joining a boutique agency group in Sydney. That profile suggests Virtuoso sees AUNZ as an operational stabilization project, not a growth market requiring aggressive partner acquisition. The network's broader strategy, visible in concurrent moves to onboard Barbados as a preferred destination and publish sustainability research, prioritizes advisor retention in high-margin segments over geographic expansion. AUNZ fits that model: hold the base, don't chase volume.
Watch whether Virtuoso announces any new AUNZ preferred partnerships before September 2025, when the network's annual Travel Week convenes in Las Vegas. If Glamore returns from her tour without adding local hotel groups or DMCs, it confirms the defensive posture. Also watch competitor recruitment activity — Signature opened a dedicated AUNZ support hub in April 2025 and is actively courting mid-tier agencies that Virtuoso historically ignored. The gap between 6% and 11% growth isn't wide, but it's widening.
Virtuoso's AUNZ member count has held steady at exactly 100 agencies since Q3 2024, a number that hasn't changed in three quarterly reports.