What Retirees Want

5The Time Affluence Explosion: Fifty Trillion Hours of Leisure to Fill

JIM BENDT IS a former advertising executive turned travel advisor. He opened a travel agency at the same time the industry was shrinking from 30,000 to 15,000 firms, due to the rise in online self-booking. In his industry research, he found that transactional agencies were being supplanted by Expedia or Travelocity, but others that were more relationship-based were doing well: “The agencies that were actually thriving and growing were the ones that took on more of an advisory role to their clients, like how a financial advisor or an attorney would serve their clients.” He and his wife Linda founded Pique Travel Design and joined forces with Virtuoso in developing the Wanderlist travel tools and portfolio. That's right, not “bucket list,” but “Wanderlist.”

Virtuoso, the organization behind the Wanderlist, is the world's largest travel network focused on crafting bespoke, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Under the visionary leadership of Chairman/CEO Matthew Upchurch, Virtuoso's 20,000 travel advisors recognize that the special trip to explore one's family's past in Italy or that cruise up the Amazon with grandchildren is so important and valuable that the planning and on-the-ground execution are best not left to chance. The Virtuoso website proclaims: “When you work with a Virtuoso travel advisor, not only will you gain access to deep travel expertise, you'll also discover a specialist in you. Someone who ...