Q&A With David Gilmore, Director Strategic Partnerships for Panorama Travel Solutions

Q&A With David Gilmore, Director Strategic Partnerships for Panorama Travel Solutions

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Working with Panorama, a Travel and Leisure Co. brand, David Gilmore’s goal is to help travel businesses bring convenience, information, inspiration and value to their customers.

Panorama is delivering a full suite of travel solutions and B2B partnership opportunities, not to mention discount travel membership clubs and custom travel technology solutions. We talked with Gilmore about what his organization has to offer Family Travel Association members.

 First, please tell FTA members a little bit about Panorama and your mission. 

It helps a little bit to understand who our parent company is and how we became that way. Last year, we were Wyndham Destinations. And we acquired the Travel and Leisure Brand, which is the magazine and then there are some other assets, and we officially became the Travel and Leisure Company and on the New York Stock Exchange we are TNL. Along with that came some assets, and we created a business-to-business division called Panorama. And that’s the division I work for. So we take advantage of some of the inspirational content, some of the exclusive experiences from TNL, and then we use our technology that gains us access to a full-service travel website, hotels, car rentals, activities. And then also, because RCI is part of our family as well, we have access to some of that weekly condo resort inventory.

So we take all of that we put it together and then we go out to other partners, mostly member-based organizations like the Family Travel Association, and we build travel websites for their needs. And so that’s what I do on a very, very high level, we reach out to other organizations and help provide value to their members. And then also, the organization can make some money off of it.

How do you provide that value for your partners?

The platform, we customize it to our partner’s needs. So let’s say you want to offer your customers or your members discounted travel, and you want it to have a marketing theme. We would build that content and it would say, “Hey, here’s the latest blog information about marketing in the travel space, and by the way, you can go ahead and click here, visit our headquarters, learn about us, do experience with us while booking your hotel and rental car and car and air at discounted rates.

So your audience gets value by having everything in one place, the inspiration, the content, and the discounted travel at rates they’re not going to find anywhere else.

Due to the nature of your business, Panorama actually didn’t fare terribly during the pandemic. How are you leveraging that success now to help your partners?

What did affect us is, some of our partnerships were put on hold for a while. Us providing content and websites and travel discounts to others who rely on us, that was affected. We weren’t a member of Family Travel Association for a couple years, but I rejoined because we have new product launches, new sites, and really, I think it’s time for some of the family travel industry to need our expertise. We have our own call center, which is completely different from a lot of other companies. They’re our own employees.

When it comes to family travel in 2022, do you have any advice or insight?

I don’t know about advice, but there’s a trend going on in the bigger economic market as well as in our space in that. Entities are looking to grow their business beyond what their core is. AT&T, for instance, they even started their travel club. They have this captive audience and they want to add value.

So, if there’s advice, it’s, why don’t you look to grow your model with something supplemental beyond just advertising on your site. That’s nice, but all this inspirational content, wouldn’t you like to keep them there and provide links so they can instantly book? That’s what our Travel & Leisure Club is. It’s a subscription site designed with the inspiration and curated experiences that our team has been doing for years and years, and now you can book everything right on that same site, at a discount, in that world you know and love.

What are you excited about in 2022 (that you’re allowed to tell us about)?

I specifically am charged with the family travel space. What that will look like is, the Travel & Leisure brand has 6 million magazine subscribers and 10 million digital readers, so you’re looking at an audience of 16 million people. We can use that. You can leverage a relationship with our brand. We can build something together, provide special offers, implement our partners’ content. I’m looking forward to building it back up to where it should be.

Anything else you want FTA members to know?

The primary focus is for us to provide value. How can we provide something to other members of the Family Travel Association that will help grow their business? I can be very flexible on how we grow that business together, take advantage of our technology, our brand, our size—but we’re not too big. I’m just looking to form those partnerships and ramp this up again.

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One response to “Q&A With David Gilmore, Director Strategic Partnerships for Panorama Travel Solutions”

  1. Colleen Kelly says:

    Fantastic article on David!…a powerhouse and leader in the field of travel while also being a really nice person. Great job, FTA, as always!