Las Vegas—The rich are getting richer, they say. That’s great news for the travel industry, especially for travel advisors and suppliers who focus on the luxury end.
It was a happy crowd at the Virtuoso Travel Week conference last week, where the association’s target clientele of high-net-worth travelers, those with over $1 million in assets, grew even faster than expected in every market in the world.
“We expect 16 million new high-net-worths to be created in a five-year period between 2021 and 2026,” Virtuoso executive vice president David Kolner said.
Indeed, even as travel advisors across the spectrum report record sales, Virtuoso’s sales in the first half of 2023 are up 69% over 2019, with the hotel and cruise segments more than doubling, up 173% and 122% respectively. Hotel bookings rose 20%.
It’s no wonder that 87% of respondents to a Virtuoso member survey in July reported feeling optimistic about their business, and just 12% were neutral or unsure.
Going forward, things are continuing to trend up. Bookings are up 44% from last year and more than 100% from 2019. Future cruise sales are 44% higher than they were in 2022 and more than double (up 106%) in 2019.
For fall and the festive season this year, sales and bookings are up—and “it’s not just higher prices, it’s actually more bookings on file,” Kolner said.
Hot tickets in the luxury sector include private planes and yachts, and next-level stimulation and engagement (like scientific expeditions in Antarctica). Wellness is important to this group; 94% incorporate self-care into their trip. Iceland has emerged as a wellness destination, as has Thailand.
Bookings for the remainder of 2023 remain ahead of every previous year, though the Caribbean is beginning to show some softening of rates, said VP of global public relations Misty Belles. On the Virtuoso website, there’s been a 50% increase in the number of consumers looking for an advisor since pre-pandemic years.
High-net-worth travelers are “going from one private experience to another,” Belles said, spending between $10,000 and $50,000 per trip, most notably for culinary travel. More than half (57%) of luxury travelers agreed that “creating a travel experience that best fits my expectations is more important than price.”
If you are looking for benchmarks for your own business, Virtuoso reported sales are up 47% year over year for the fall season, September 1 to December 15, and bookings are up 36%. The most popular foreign destinations for Americans are Italy, France, the UK, and Mexico.
For the holiday season, December 15 to January 7, sales and bookings both are up 17% with top non-US destinations being Mexico, France, Costa Rica, and Anguilla.
Meanwhile, the San Domenico Palace, Taormina, A Four Seasons Hotel/Italy, was named “The Best of the Best” hotel, and the Peninsula Istanbul Hotel was named the “Best New Hotel.” Tauck was named best tour operator and Emirates best airline. Christy Menzies of Menzies Luxe Retreats, an independent affiliate of Brownell Travel, in Darien, CT, was named Virtuoso’s Rising Star.
Happy Anniversary Virtuoso
For Virtuoso, Travel Week was its 35th annual event. The first, in 1989, brought 174 attendees to the Brazilian Court in Palm Beach, FL for two days of learning and bonding.
This year’s conference attracted 5,000 attendees to Las Vegas, including 80 new members and 170 new suppliers, nearly 70% of them from countries outside the United States, said SVP of sales and partnerships Cory Hagopian.
