Vacation.com

One of the best things about Las Vegas is how it’s always changing—it’s never the same locale twice! However, travelers too often assume that all the best changes are going on inside the city, particularly on The Strip.

Well, that’s just not true, as those attendees who partied with us last night at Lake Las Vegas now know all too well.

Lake Las Vegas, an oasis in the desert, is a gorgeous lake banked by million dollar homes, golf courses, and a resort area with a Ritz Carlton, a Loews hotel (both AAA four star rated properties) and a beautiful Tuscan inspired village with cafes, boutiques, wine shops and a casino. 

Attendees at last night’s party enjoyed, well everything! They enjoyed the gorgeous lake setting, the hotel tours, the free drinks and refreshments, the gondola and ferry rides, and the ‘wine tour’ through the Tuscan village. And how about that sushi buffet at the Loews property? Yum! And the surprise fireworks were a great way to end the evening.

It’s safe to say that these agents will be suggesting Lake Las Vegas to their clients.

Agents learn all about Amadeus

A strange thing is happening in the Experience Room, the place attendees go for hands-on training and informative demonstrations on many of the products and services available through membership.

That strange thing is this: agents are entering the Experience Room as human travel agents, but they’re leaving as super-power travel-sellers!

Somehow, as they go from table to table to learn about EZguider, Engagement, AgentNet, Vacation Vignettes, TRAMS, CCRA, Passport Online, American Express® and others, they are picking up strange and wonderful super powers, such as ways to sell travel faster, attract more clients and overcome any business obstacle.

And they’re having fun doing it! As many of you know, there’s always a game involved in the Experience Room that agents can play to win prizes. For this year’s game, attendees gathered these super powers to defeat the Evil Dr. Coconut and win valuable prizes.

And these ain’t regular prizes…they’re SUPER prizes, including SUPERvisors, SUPER-power rings and, of course, SUPER American Express Rewards Cards. We had 9 cash winner yesterday alone!

We had a great turn out for the First-Timer’s Orientation. In case you don’t know, this is where those attendees who are new to the glory and wonder that is Conference gather for a thirty-minute overview of the days ahead.

A lot of agents came straight from the Owner Manager Think Tank session, so there was a buzz in the air as this was the first time some of them heard the wisdom of our wonderful marketing guru, Mike Marchev. No doubt he gained a few more attendees to his Marketing Café seminars later in the week.

Lauraday Kelley, the Grand Dame of Conference, ran the orientation, welcoming everyone to Vegas and explaining such Conference basics as the Experience Room, learning tracks, the Supplier Trade Show, General Sessions and nightly fun.

As expected, the crowd reacted enthusiastically to the promise of nightly fun. So, recognizing there was no better time than the present to make good on that promise, Lauraday laid out the plans for Tuesday’s event: discounted dining at the Forum Shops for those agents staying at Caesars Palace. This put the first-timers into quite a predicament, for they had to decide which of The Forum’s premium restaurants to feast in!

While we certainly entertain Conference attendees with our various shows and parties, our first priority is to educate them. Most agents don’t even realize how much they’re learning here in Vegas, but I can tell you, they’re learning a lot.

We have more than 175 hours of classes here this week—that’s almost non-stop learning. We have classes on EZguider, marketing, technology, database management, supplier training, CLIA, Engagement, customer retention, self-organization, Amadeus products, home-based agentry (is ‘agentry’ a word? it is now), Google and even geography.

I’m amazed at how much our agents can take in without their heads exploding!

On Friday, we’re taking this dedication to education up a notch with four Power Speakers. Now, I’ve seen these Power Speakers before…Nolan Burris, Mike Marchev, Mark McMullen and Stuart Ellis-Myers… and they don’t look too powerful to me. But I’ve heard it’s their ideas that make them super-powerful (maybe they belong in the Experience Room!). We’re all looking forward to hearing their powerful ideas Friday morning.

Today is the day! Our 11th annual Conference and Trade Show kicks off  at 1pm today with the Experience Room (Florentine) opening and the bonus day of training getting underway. The Mayflower Tours Hoover Dam & Lake Meade tour departs at 9am! Registration has been going strong since 7am. The conference team has been working hard to transform these empty meeting spaces into classrooms, hands-on labs and fabulous stages, and boy does it show! 

There are over 1000 attendees expected here at Caesars this week and we couldn’t be more excited to see everyone. We love seeing our veteran conference delegates year after year, as well as the newbies! For the newbies, don’t forget about the First timers Orientation today at 6pm in Roman III–that is the best way to get yourselves acclimated to everything this week has to offer. Lauraday herself gives this orientation, so be sure not to miss it. Veterans are welcome too, as we are always adding new things!

So come say hello, let us know how you are enjoying your time so far with us! There is certainly a lot more excitement and surprises to come, so buckle up, it is going to be a fantastic week!!

9 days from now the first wave of Vcom staff will be arriving at Caesars Palace Vegas to start the set up for this year’s big show.

It is hard to accurately paint a picture of how much work goes into this event. We strive to make it look effortless onsite. But in reality it is over a year in the making. Many different moving parts including production companies, and exhibit companies, suppliers, speakers, catering, travel and transportation, and on and on. Lauraday and team (and the whole staff really) strive to make sure our agents get as much out of the four jam-packed days as possible. We consider it an honor that our member agents & preferred suppliers take time out of their lives and away from their families to attend this event.

This is a unique year for everyone. Although our agents are a resilient lot, the economy has made it a little more difficult than usual. We have heard from many agents that wish to come, but just cannot manage it this year. So we have decided to embrace some new technologies to bridge the gap and share some of the fun (and learning!!) for those staying behind.

We are going to Tweet!

We are going to blog (you already found it!)!

We are going to Facebook!

We have a flickr photostream for daily photo uploads (that will automatically update here) and a youtube channel to share some video highlights. We know this can’t replace the hours of sessions, power speakers, learning and face to face networking, but it helps!

See you in Vegas, baby!