These days there is more money sloshing around at the top end of the travel industry than ever before. The largest market for luxury travel continues to be the 50s and above, as the children leave the nest and couples find themselves with a large disposable income, but the younger generation is catching up fast. Jim Millward, marketing manager for tailor-made travel agency Audley Travel, says: "We're seeing 30-something professionals who have done the backpacking, who want to travel in comfort while packing a lot into a couple of weeks and don't want to do the organising themselves."
So what are today's luxury travellers looking for in a hotel or resort? The popularity of spa facilities has grown hugely over the last decade, with most agreeing that they are now a pre-requisite for a luxury hotel rather than a bonus. Fitness fanatic Sir Rocco Forte, founder of the luxury Rocco Forte hotel brand, has ensured that all new openings have extensive health and spa facilities, and believes them to be an essential part of the luxury hotel offering. "Just as a well equipped gym became the norm in a business hotel, so now spas are growing in popularity," he says. "People with a hectic lifestyle, spending many hours on planes, need the opportunity to relax whilst on their travels."
This is a view shared by Brett Butcher, senior VP sales and marketing for Langham Hotels. The group is extending its Langham Place brand over the next few years, with the next opening being in Beijing, including the Chuan Spa, offering treatments based on traditional Chinese medicine. Butcher says: "I believe that the top-end luxury hotels opening in the next five years or so will all have 'icon' spas, with the better ones taking what is good from their local community and interpreting that into the spa."
The most telling sign of the boom is when the spa is the selling point for the resort itself, as is the case with the luxury Banyan Tree Spa and Resorts brand. The recently opened Al Areen resort in Bahrain (see online news May 9) features 10,000 sqm of spa and hydrotherapy facilities, with villas including private swimming pools and oversized infinity bath tubs.
But if spas are a pre-requisite, are they necessarily enough for luxury travellers? Not according to companies like Audley Travel, which are seeing a surge in demand for active, experience-led luxury trips. And if these experiences happen to give them one up on "the Joneses" then all the better. Audley Travel's Millward says: "We're developing Canada, Alaska and the Arctic as our next destination. There are fantastic experiences such as going out from Queen Charlotte Island on a sailing boat, spotting grizzly bears, and there are some wonderful lodges right up in the high Arctic where you can snorkel with beluga whales. It's all very experience-based."
Ben Blackler, director of marketing for adventure specialist Abercrombie and Kent, agrees: "People will always take holidays where they fly to X destination, stay in a five-star hotel and flop on the beach, but increasingly the luxury traveller is after more than this. A&K at its core is about luxury adventure – the company started with Geoff Kent in a Land Rover taking people around Kenya on a safari. The difference was he put a refrigerator in the back so that people could enjoy views of the savannah while sipping glasses of chilled champagne.
"Today our most popular destinations are India and Egypt, but in terms of growth we're seeing a lot more demand for China. Latin America is also popular, with Peru and the Inca trail, and there are some fantastic eco-beach resorts springing up in Brazil."
Blackler adds that, while more and more luxury travellers are looking for what they perceive to be "authentic" experiences, they're also demanding hotels and resorts which take environmental concerns into consideration. "Customers don't want to be cloistered away from the destination in the way that the classic all-inclusive resorts do," he says. "They want to have access to what they feel is the real destination and people, to get a real insight. But they also want the place to have some sort of view on environmental responsibility – and that's not the old 'we'll stick the towels in the sink to save a bit of water'. Things have moved on from there and people want to see that resorts are supporting local communities, being built from local materials and using local produce."
This trend in experience-based travel has been evident in the growth in specialised agencies and resorts to cope with demand. From luxury safari lodges in Africa, to whale-watching in southern Argentina and yachting around the Galapagos, industry shows such as the International Luxury Travel Market (ILTM) have seen a surge in experience-led exhibitors.
Deborah Joslin, product development director for ILTM, says: "Travellers are looking for challenging experiences and participative travel, and want to interact with the local culture and society at a greater level than ever before. We are seeing the sphere of luxury travellers moving to locations more out of the way than ever before including Patagonia, Mongolia, Antarctica and, indeed, travel into space – which is quickly becoming reality."
Travel to the final frontier is of course the ultimate experience of all, and with Virgin Galactic planning its first customer flights by 2009 (at a cost of around £100,000 per person) there are already plenty of customers signing up for the ultimate in bragging rights. There's no doubt that the increase in the number of high net worth individuals has led to a surge in demand for ultra-luxury trips such as space travel or cruises on superyachts, but luxury travel is not all about "flash the cash" experiences.
John Saunders, founder of recently-launched luxury travel specialist Exosphere, explains: "The Easyjet phenomenon means customers can fly down to Nice and then get off the plane and into their chauffeur-driven car to go and stay in a five-star hotel. The majority of people in the luxury market are still conscious of spend – usually you'll find that people who have made money are also careful with their money. Long-haul a lot of our clients will travel in business or first, but short-haul it's not so important."
Millward of Audley Travel agrees, adding that luxury travellers are still price-conscious to a certain extent. "Most of our clients have a budget – it may not be a prohibitive budget in terms of it stopping them going somewhere, but they still have a good sense of value," he says. "[In terms of air travel] we're seeing a lot of people opting to upgrade to premium economy. They might be happy to travel in business class if their company is paying for it, but if it's their own money they are more conscious."
While the trend in the luxury market is undoubtedly towards authentic experiences, it's unanimously agreed that this can't be at the expense of good service. Sir Rocco Forte says: "Fashion and food go through trends and you adapt to those, making sure that you never lose sight of good service. Providing consistent high-quality personalised customer service is absolutely key to the running of any luxury hotel.
"It is quite often the smallest of touches that make a difference, from organising a small surprise in the room for a guest's birthday to having the concierge go out and buy a whole new wardrobe for a guest whose luggage has gone missing. Service should meet the needs of a client like a bespoke tailor."
Langham's Butcher agrees that service is extremely powerful when it comes to luring the luxury travel market. "You can be surrounded by beautiful art and design, but if you can't get you shirt ironed when you need it then it won't work," he says. "At The Langham it's all about enchanting hospitality, service with poise, the way things should always have been."
Of course good customer service is essential not only at the hotel or resort, but during the decision-making process beforehand. While the budget travel market might require nothing more than an internet search for a flight and hotel room by the individual themselves, the organisation of a luxury getaway is often left to a specialist such as Exosphere, who will be expected to cover all the bases in return for the premium prices charged.
John Saunders says: "The majority of our customers are cash rich and time poor, so we're taking both the hassle and the risk element away – a resort's website and brochure may look fantastic, but what it doesn't show you is the building site next door or that your room is overlooking a building rather than the beautiful landscape, and it's those things where we can make the holiday work like clockwork."
The bespoke nature of Exosphere's offering means that they don't produce a brochure for their customers to look through (unlike Audley Travel and A&K). Saunders explains: "The way it works in general is that a client will come to us with several ideas, then we'll send them five or six propositions, and we'll build up a holiday from there. It's completely bespoke, so by the time we've whittled it down we can be pretty sure it's the perfect holiday for them.
"Our strap line is 'The world on your terms' – it's not about us, it's about the client. A glossy brochure is all very good for the coffee table, but a brochure is right for the mass market, not for the individual."
One of the greatest challenges for the luxury travel market is ensuring it stays just that – there are plenty of examples of luxury products and services losing their exclusive sheen when they become a mass market proposition. Blackler of A&K says: "Today 94 per cent of women under 25 in Tokyo own a Louis Vuitton bag. They would say they are a luxury brand, but in Tokyo they are a mass-market brand. Luxury by its very definition means rare and difficult to access – there are all sorts of examples of brands being luxury in the past and not being any more.
"I think luxury brands that move into 'masstige' [marketing speak for luxury for the masses] territory are in very dangerous territory – the constant challenge to luxury companies is where to draw the line. I don't think something can be luxury if a mass of people can get access to it."
This may be true in part, but as Sir Rocco points out, as more and more people have access to ready cash, it's inevitable that they will demand more high-end accommodation.
"There is now a much bigger cross-section of people with money than ever before, so the sorts of people using luxury hotels has changed," he says. "In particular, a much larger number of companies are using luxury hotels, which means that the clientele also tend to be younger."
So what lies ahead for the luxury travel market? Deborah Joslin of ILTM sees several key trends emerging. "There will be increased customer loyalty between the luxury traveller and their private travel arranger, and travel agents will need to become much more specialised in specific destinations," she says.
"We're also seeing a rapid rise in green travel, with travellers taking greater responsibility for their own actions, and a continual growth in experience-led, philanthropic, culturally immersive travel. And we see travel becoming more convenient for the wealthy, with the onset of business-class only flights, concierge services and luggage-forwarding options."
So whether it's relaxing at a spa resort, trekking in the Andes or sampling an eco-beach resort in India, it seems the luxury travel market is listening to its (ever more) demanding clientele. Certainly there have never been more opportunities out there to travel in style, or more travellers ready to pay for their privileges.
Visit audleytravel.com, abercrombiekent.co.uk, roccofortehotels.com, langhamhotels.com, exosphere.com, iltm.net.
