The Signature Travel Network unveiled a new consumer-facing hotel booking tool at its annual conference.

Held December 7 to 10 at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, it drew more than 2,300 attendees including supplier partners and 1,400 travel advisors.

Karen Yeates, Signature's executive vice president of information technologies, said the consumer booking tool will enable customers to check availability and pricing and directly book properties in Signature's hotel collection, which has been expanded by 100 in 2018 for a total of 1,033 hotels and resorts in 90 countries.

Advisors who opt to use the booking tool, slated to launch by the end of this year, will also be able to include-in addition to Signature Collection properties-a choice of either ABC Corporate or Thor hotels, the hotel programs offered by Signature.

The tool will reside on advisors' websites, and all commissions will go directly to the advisor. The tool will also be integrated into Signature's email marketing programs, Yeates said.

Advisors can add the booking engine as a stand-alone widget with a search component or enter the booking process at the city search result or hotel profile (if they have their own search and content mechanism for hotels).

Signature has always had an agent hotel booking tool, and its advisors haven't pushed for a consumer-facing tool. The new tool is partly a reflection of the increase in clients booking hotels online, Yates added.

"We don't want consumers to jump off [advisors'] sites and go to a hotel site for availability and prices," said Signature's President and CEO Alex Sharpe.

The tool will cost Signature advisors $1,500 a year, he added. "It's a matter of having some skin in the game. We'll start with that but if everyone wants it, we'll eventually make it free."

Sharpe told attendees that despite a year of hurricanes in the Caribbean, Texas and Florida; the earthquake in Mexico; and the wild fires now raging through California, Signature's advisors have had a good year.

"This year we've had a bit of a double whammy because I believe when stuff happens, it's painful but it's your chance to shine; your chance to show them [clients] why they use a travel consultant," he said.

"It's you who help travelers discern whether to go and if it's safe. That's the value of what a great travel consultant does. We're at the point where nothing surprises us; this economy, our customers, just keep going and so do we. The Dow is now at 24,000 and it just keeps going; we don't know where the top is."

Sharpe said close to 55 percent of Signature advisors' business is luxury: "Premium" and "contemporary" travel too is important, "but luxury is where we're needed the most."

FIT sales were up this year, he reported: "This is critically important to what we do because it's where we get our greatest per diem."

Family travel is also becoming more and more important as a lucrative sell for advisors, while Europe and river cruising made a great comeback in 2017. Clients are looking for transparency and demanding more streamlined communication, which underscores the importance of Signature's Pocket Travel Consultant, according to Sharpe.

Pocket Consultant, Signature's proprietary mobile itinerary app, powered by Axus, allows advisors to create and send vacation itineraries to clients that are viewable offline while clients are traveling. The itineraries are customized with each advisor's brand.

Introduced last year, there's been a 150 percent increase in Signature advisors' use of the app.

In addition to the expansion of its hotel collection, Signature announced 119 new supplier partners for 2017: Carnival Cruise Line, five tour operators, one destination specialist, eight tourism boards and three airlines.

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