Ahlsmith's Aspirations

Scott Ahlsmith, CTC, Executive Vice President, Global Technology for Virtuoso, Ltd. and Chairman of the Board for The Travel Institute, Inc., has a travel industry career that dates to 1972. From owning his own agencies to being a subject matter expert on travel technology and distribution, Ahlsmith brings a depth of knowledge and thought-leadership to his two key travel industry roles that are hard to match.

It all began in 1972 when he accepted what he thought was a temporary assignment for Jostens Incentive Travel. He became account executive and stayed for six years. From there, he navigated almost every aspect of the industry, owning agencies, and working in the tour operator, travel publishing and travel technology sectors.

Scott’s resume points to the following stops in his travel industry tour: He was branch manager of Thomas Cook Travel; director of sales for Cartan Tours; director of the Electronic Edition of the Official Airline Guide; president of Gant Travel Management; and vice president and general manager of TRAMS, president and CEO of Magellan Travel Group, founder of You! the Brand, and currently executive vice president, global technology for Virtuoso.

Scott came to Virtuoso to help design and guide the delivery of a global network platform.  Scott’s approach has been to ask users, “What matters most?”, listen intently, observe reactions, and refine processes. Based on this approach and Scott’s leadership, Virtuoso has delivered the first two versions of Virtuoso Composer™ to a global audience.  He currently focuses on building a recommender system based on predictive analytics of the rich data contained in travel transactions and hosting collaborative conversations among global travel advisors, suppliers and their affluent clients.

Scott attended Kansas University and left in 1972 after five years of studying journalism, education, and computer science. He has put that journalism experience to good use, having written The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Perfect Vacation. Scott also hosted daily radio travel shows for Voice of America and appears from time-to-time on a variety of radio and television news and talk programs as a travel expert.  Scott is a travel professional’s advocate, ombudsman, evangelist, true believer, guinea pig, arbitrator, intermediary, innovator, moderator, consultant, educator, coach, and cheerleader.   He resides in Chicago and Seattle.