16162-RES-2016 Future of Luxury Travel-Web Pages Final-Revised

FUTURE OF LUXURY TRAVEL
REPORT
RESONANCE
2016
PhotocourtesyRobbAaronGordon

01
04
10
16
22
28
32
38
42
48
52
58
60
Introduction
Travel as Transformation
Art is the New Food
Well, Well, Well
Hospitality’s Asian Turn
Togethering is Everything
Unreal Real Estate
Warm is the New Cool
Athletic Pursuits
Trip. Advisers.
Higher Flyers
Conclusion
Endnotes
CONTENTS

Resonance has been studying
the destinations, aspirations and
preferences of the wealthiest
American travelers for nearly
a decade. In this 2016 Future
of Luxury Travel Report, we’ve
identified 10 high-level trends that
reflect experiences and habits that
are shaping the travel experience
at the high end in the U.S. and
around the world. We hope you find
the reading both enlightening and
informative, wherever in the world
you might be.
To learn more about Resonance
and our research reports – and our
consulting and marketing services –
please visit resonanceco.com.
Sincerely,
Dianna Carr
Vice-President, Editor-in-Chief

1
The world gets ever smaller. But the rich, and those
who serve them, think ever bigger. For elite travelers,
the world is a plumper, tastier oyster than ever
before, a playground with no real borders or barriers,
except those created by the increasing fear of being
in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As the number of wealthy travelers has grown,
the travel ante has been upped to a breathtaking
altitude: 30,000 feet is commonplace. When Four
Seasons introduced its fully branded private jet tours
of the world in 2015, it might have seemed that we’d
reached Peak Experience. But of course, we hadn’t.
Today, a half-dozen companies offer ever more
intensely experiential tours on spectacularly tricked-
out private planes. Suborbital space tourism is next
on the elite’s travel bucket list.
In the U.S., the wealthiest 1% of travelers have
household incomes of $400K+ and/or net worth of
$8 million+; the top 5% have incomes of $200K+
and/or net worth of $2 million+. To prepare this
report, we conducted an online survey with 1,667
U.S. travelers in the top 5% of U.S. households, with
724 travelers falling in the top 1%.
We found that the wealthiest 5% take an average of
14.3 trips per year (about half for business and half
for leisure) compared to just 4.8 by U.S. travelers
in general. With an average of 2.9 people per
household, and an average expenditure of $3,115
per person per vacation, that adds up to spending
of approximately $390 billion per year on leisure
travel alone. Which makes wealthy U.S. travelers
one of the most lucrative travel market segments
in the world and an important driver of luxury travel
demand and trends across the globe.
The wealthy are eclectic, opinionated and have
individual passions – from triathlons to contemporary
art. So while a wealthy Asian traveler might
want her familiar fare for breakfast, the rich, as a
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION

2
INTRODUCTION
PhotocourtesyBlackTomato
Mergui Archipelago, off the coast of Myanmar

3
INTRODUCTION
demographic, are more alike from one country
to another than not. President Radha Arora of
Rosewood Hotels & Resorts told Resonance
that his company doesn’t cater specifically to
an affluent American or Asian traveler, but to “a
discerning world traveler.” Edie Rodriguez, CEO
of Crystal Cruises, concurs. She told Skift that
the demographic is united by a desire for what
she calls “ECO,” which has nothing to do with the
environment – or nationality – and everything to do
with “Exclusivity, Customization and Options.”1
Indeed, buzzwords abound at the top of the
wealthy travel world – not just exclusivity,
customization and options, but also “experience,”
the incredibly overused “curated” and “bespoke.”
“Wellness” has come to encompass a dizzying
array of pursuits. So prevalent is this vocabulary
that a careful reading shows these terms applied
to everything from cupcake connoisseurship to
the Monaco Boat Show.
Regardless of the language used to describe the
tastes and travels of the wealthy, they have an
outsized impact on the travel and tourism industry as
a whole. Tourism Economics forecasts that the global
travel and tourism industry will grow at an average
rate of 4.8% per year between 2015 and 2025, but
luxury travel is expected to grow an average of 6.2%
per year – almost a third greater than travel overall.
In fact, in its 2015 Luxury Goods Worldwide Market
Study, Bain & Company found that spending on
luxury hospitality grew 7% between 2014 and 2015
– the fastest-growing category in the entire luxury
goods and services industry.
But in addition to being the fastest-growing segment
within one of the world’s fastest-growing industries,
luxury travel is also one of the most interesting
segments to follow as the travel adventures and
preferences of the wealthy are inevitably indicative of
future trends and preferences for travelers in general.
In this 2016 Future of Luxury Travel Report,
we’ve identified 10 high-level trends that reflect
experiences, desires and shifts that are shaping the
travel experience at the high end in the U.S. and
around the world. In the following pages, you’ll find
stories about the new importance of art, the effects
of the rise of Togethering, the evolution of vacation
homes, the impact of Asian ownership in hospitality
and much more. Turn the page. The future’s here.
The travel adventures of the wealthy
are inevitably indicative of future
trends and preferences for travelers
in general.

ART IS THE NEW FOOD
4
“People today want to accomplish some
kind of transformative experience while
they’re taking a vacation.”
DAVE HOWERTON, HART HOWERTON
Burning Man
Photocourtesy@__k_c_k__

5
01 | TRAVEL AS TRANSFORMATION
01
TRAVEL AS TRANSFORMATION
Experiences can only be deemed
“transformative” if they have the power to
change you. But for the highly evolved species
that is the luxury traveler, who has seen and
done much, can transformation only come
from an out of this world experience?
For America’s most sophisticated and worldly
travelers, a vacation is an opportunity to send
their minds off to explore new intellectual and
experiential landscapes. The wealthiest 1% of
American travelers say that “learning new things” is
the third most important thing they do on vacations,
after only dining and sightseeing. While virtually
all modern travelers are keen to learn on vacation,
wealthy travelers have a far wider range of learning
adventures to choose from. And the trips that teach
us the most are the ones that change us.
“People today want to accomplish some kind of
transformative experience while they're taking a
vacation,” luxury hotel and resort architect Dave
Howerton of Hart Howerton told Resonance. “That
can be learning something in a different culture or
experiencing something in a different sort of physical
or community setting that you take home with you.”
But what exactly does “transformation” mean,
and how do we get there from here? Melissa
Biggs Bradley, a former Town and Country travel
editor who founded the boutique travel agency
Indagare, describes a recent trip to Japan as a
“transformational” experience: “It makes you re-
examine many of life’s daily rituals, and permanently
shifts the way you view the world.”2
That’s a tall order, but festival-style events like
Further Future might be a ticket: The Wall Street
Journal describes the festival, which is designed
to promote “Mindful Optimism” as a mix of titans
of tech, TED-style talks and Burning Man’s hardest
partiers – a “Burning Man open for business.”3
MTV

6
co-founder and iHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman
tells his employees that “If life is about looking for
epiphanies and insights, there is no better place than
communities like this.”4
This year’s Vision Speaker
Series attracted execs who touched on the future
of everything from data and artificial intelligence to
experiences, brain health and cannabis. Festival
accommodations? Comfortable. They can include
Airstream trailers at $5,000 for the weekend and
Lunar Palace luxury domes complete with concierge
service for $7,500.5
While many travelers seek places and programming
that let them go deeper into interests spanning
cooking to archaeology, literature to art, wealthy
travelers chase epiphanies and clarity not only
in deserts, but on mountains (a favorite location)
or afloat: there’s the Aspen Ideas Festival, the
invitation-only TED, and of course Davos, all highly
coveted, high-ticket items delivering life-changing
inspiration and intellectual stimulation to the elite of
business and culture.
Crystal Cruises brings lecturers and savants on
board so you can “discover your personal best”;
the Summit Series – a private symposium on
land and sea created by the wealthy Millennial
owners of Powder Mountain – was designed to
create “transformative opportunities and infinite
possibility.” Summit describes itself as a developer
that builds communities and places that catalyze
entrepreneurship, creative achievement and global
change to create a more joyful world.6
The hospitality business has also jumped on
the transformative train – or, in the case of Four
Seasons, the jet. For some $119,000 per ticket, 52
passengers are flown in the Four Seasons Jet –
along with 21 hotel-trained crew and staff, a travel
coordinator, concierge, executive chef, physician
Dining
Sightseeing
Learning new things
Visiting cultural attractions
Engaging with nature
Fun attractions
Attending cultural events performances
Shopping
Health fitness
Nightlife
ACTIVITIES ON VACATION: TOP 1%
WOULD LIKE TO TRY REGULARLY/OCCASIONALLY
Base: All respondents (n=723)
A8. While on vacation what activities do you enjoy regularly, enjoy occasionally, would like to try, or do not enjoy?
Would like to try Regularly OccasionallyHigher than top 5% Lower than top 5%
94%
91%
90%
90%
85%
85%
85%
83%
78%
75%
76%
62%
53%
45%
40%
37%
37%
41%
38%
23%
5%
6%
8%
5%
7%
10%
10%
11%
13%
7%

7
Aspen Ideas Festival
PhotocourtesyC2Photography
and photographer – to the world: destinations
ranging from Istanbul to Ephesus or Mumbai to
Agra. Depending on where they land, passengers
choose from a variety of experiential excursions.
Tanzanian safari; horseback riding on the Mauritius
islands; behind-the-scenes at the Sydney Opera
House; or exploring mangrove swamps, rainforests
and sandstone mountains in Malaysia as part of
UNESCO’s Global Geopark network are a few of
many options. Luxury travel company Abercrombie
Kent has its own global jet tour, which guests enjoy in
the presence of founder Geoffrey Kent himself.
If travelers don’t get to a higher personal plane,
memories and bragging rights will have to do.
“Luxury consumers are continuing to indulge in their
experiences. It’s not buying a new handbag or pair
of shoes,” Pam Danziger, president and founder of
Unity Marketing told The Globe and Mail. “The focus
on one-of-a-kind, behind-the-scenes experiences
really matters to people.”7
In the Resonance 2016
U.S. Luxury Travel Report, participating in a “once in
a lifetime” activity is enjoyed regularly or occasionally
by 69% of 1 percenters, significantly more than
other travelers.
At Peninsula Hotels’ Academy Programme in Hong
Kong, helicopters lift off from a rooftop pad to carry
guests to a private picnic lunch on a UNESCO-listed
beach. Oenophiles at the Bangkok property can ride
an elephant through a vineyard. Youngsters staying
in Chicago can be transformed into a princess for a
day – complete with a pumpkin-carriage ride, tiara
fitting and glass slipper.8
Clearly, these strategies are working. Ritz-Carlton,
Four Seasons and Peninsula are considered
among the top-ranked hotel brands by the top 5%
of travelers in terms of overall brand opinion in the
Resonance 2016 U.S. Luxury Travel Report.

8Peninsula Hotel Academy Program
PhotocourtesyThePeninsulaParis

9
It’s said that seeing the earth from space changes
your perception forever – the very definition of
transformational! – and if Elon Musk and Richard
Branson have their way, more and more of us will
have the opportunity to experience it. Musk, a real-
life Tony Stark (eccentric genius billionaire playboy
and superhero Iron Man) says that manned missions
to Mars will be possible by the mid-2020s.9
Branson,
head of Virgin – which rolled out the world’s first
“Spaceline” with Virgin Galactic – has been testing
flights since 2004. The cost to fly to space with
Virgin is some $250,000 per ticket, and more than
700 people have signed up so far.10
When they arrive in the outer limits, they’ll have a
place to stay, if all goes well with Bigelow Aerospace
and the International Space Station’s line of astro-
hotels. In April this year, mission controllers at
Houston used a robotic arm to attach the first
inflatable pod to the ISS.11
“We believe crews
traveling to the moon, Mars, asteroids or other
destinations could use them as habitable structures
or as labs or work areas,” NASA’s Rajib Dasgupta
told The Telegraph. The test marks the first step
towards a future where large numbers of the
inflatable pods could be joined together to form large
habitations or astro-hotels for tourists in space. They
could even be the structures that create the first
Moon or Mars colonies.12
On the other end of the spectrum, some wealthy
travelers are opting for the transformative powers
of less, retreating to the Omega Institute in upstate
New York or the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health
in Massachusetts – both places where life-changing
experience passes through austerity rather than the
hyper-stimulation of the senses.13
In fact, some of
the new wellness experiences are based on denial
rather than gratification. You’ll also read later in this
report that just being in the presence of art can
trigger the transformative.
Of course, the bragging rights aren’t quite the same.
But the idea of transformation is that it’s a personal
experience, not just an opportunity for a gravity-free
selfie. At least, that’s the theory.
Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons and Peninsula
are among the top ranked hotel brands by
the top five percent of travelers in terms
of overall brand opinion in the Resonance
2016 U.S. Luxury Travel Report.

ART IS THE NEW FOOD
1021c Museum Hotel, Durham, North Carolina
Photocourtesy21cMuseumHotels

11
Food was once a quintessential expression of
local, a placemaking tool, a destination-maker,
and a refuge for connoisseurs and the curious.
Today, art is the new food. And travelers, wealthy
and otherwise, are developing a taste for it.
More than ever before, art has become a reason
to travel and is making destinations of unexpected
places. Resonance research from the 2016 U.S.
Luxury Travel Report shows that the top 1% and
5% of travelers would rather visit an art festival than
the symphony, opera or ballet – and are significantly
fonder of art festivals and events than other
U.S. travelers.
Not very long ago, a destination’s chef and its
restaurant’s reputation were the clearest signal of
what separated the luxurious from the ordinary –
they told the cognoscenti that here was a place
where superb quality, breathtaking imagination and
attention to detail were at home. For travelers,
that began to evolve in about 2006.
That year, travelers checked into the historic
home of the new 21c Museum Hotel in Louisville,
Kentucky, and came face to face with the most
eclectic collection of contemporary art to be found
within hundreds of miles of the home of
the Kentucky Derby.
The founders of 21c, Laura Lee Brown and Steve
Wilson, had modest goals: they set out to help
revive their hometown by restoring tobacco and
bourbon warehouses, juxtaposing the architectural
past with modern art everyone could access. In the
process, they pioneered a blend of accommodation
and art that has since inspired city builders, cultural
institutions and hospitality providers in many parts
of the world.
02
ART IS THE NEW FOOD
02 | ART IS THE NEW FOOD

12
Today, art is everywhere in hospitality. Every Omni
hotel blends each city’s culture through its choices
in local art, like at the Omni Dallas, where more
than 7,000 original artworks by local artisans are on
display.14
The Andaz West Hollywood art collection –
on the Curbed list of best hotel art collections in the
country15
– pays homage to the city’s rich rock-and
roll history; guests can even purchase paintings and
installations by local artists.16
It should be noted that this isn’t art that’s easy
to ignore. Even the world’s most traditionally
luxurious hotels are bringing provocative pieces and
installations to plush surroundings – from Le Bristol
and Le Meurice in Paris to 45 Park Lane in London,
Le Sirenuse in Positano and Das Stue in Berlin.17
“Great art not only transforms the room you’re in
but can also transport you to somewhere new and
open your mind,” Robert Diament, director of Carl
Freedman Gallery in Shoreditch, London, told the
Evening Standard. “It’s really obvious to say but the
really special thing about art is that it is unique –
and it’s that rarity that makes it even more special.
So for a hotel to own a particular work can be very
powerful – it can add to the atmosphere but it also
becomes a destination to visit if you want to see a
particular art-work.”
21c founders Brown and Wilson helped art become
a destination-maker, and contributed to the profound
democratization of art that was underway in cultural
institutions everywhere a decade ago. Today, art
has gone from a relatively rarefied to an everyday
experience: not hidden away in museums to be
visited occasionally, but in public spaces, like hotels,
that make it a true member of the community –
something people are comfortable rallying around,
traveling for, learning about, and, in the case of 21c
and other hotels, sleeping with. (Consider also the
new, neighborhood-embracing expansion of the San
Francisco MOMA – Charles Schwab, chair of the
SFMOMA board, described it as “a museum for the
age of sharing.”)18
Going to see plays or musicals 80% 84% 72%
Local neighborhood/community events 72% 74% 70%
Food wine festival 69% 75% 57%
Art festival 65% 70% 56%
SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES ON VACATION
% Top-2-Box (Regularly/Occasionally)
TOP 5%
(N=1,659)
TOP 1%
(N=719)
TOP US TRAVELERS
(N=3,379)
Statistically significantly higher than top 5%
Statistically significantly higher than US travelers
Base: Enjoy regularly, enjoy occasionally or would like to try in A8
A9. Now more specifically, which of the following activities do you enjoy regularly, enjoy occasionally or would like to try?

ART IS THE NEW FOOD
13
Like food in the last decade, art now makes
tourism destinations of cities and neighborhoods.
Since 2006, 21c has opened hotels in Cincinnati,
Bentonville and Durham, and has plans for Kansas
City and Minneapolis – all so-called second-tier
cities in need of a rejuvenating jolt. The mix of
historical landmark, along with up-and-coming
international and local talent, is helping fuel creative
as well as economic rebirth as neglected cities
become bona fide places to be for art-inclined
travelers. Major centers like Miami attract the experts
and the interested: in 2002, influential collectors
helped bring Art Basel to the city; in 2009, the idea
of turning a neighborhood into a canvas for street
art was born, and today, the Wynwood Walls is
TripAdvisor’s #4 of 318 things to do in Miami.
Art also makes destinations of nowhere: there’s
Marfa, Texas, of course,19
and now, 10 miles south
of Las Vegas, Nevada, there’s Swiss artist Ugo
Rondinone’s Seven Magic Mountains, a large-scale
site-specific public art installation that will make a
This isn’t art that’s easy
to ignore. Even the world’s
most traditional luxury
hotels are bringing
provocative pieces and
installations to plush
surroundings.
21c Museum Hotel, Louisville, Kentucky

ART IS THE NEW FOOD
14
lonely corner of the desert a destination for the next
two years.
Regardless of demographic, the more people
see art, the more they want to know about it. Art
can be purely decorative for many, but it’s also a
rich, demanding subject, and the opportunities for
learning are literally endless. Alice Grey Stites, the
curator at 21c, told Skift:
“Art has the possibility to illuminate how people live in
the next city or halfway around the world, and it gives
us new perspective on our environments, our social
life, identity, relationships with other cultures. When
that is part of your experience at hotels or restaurants,
it makes it incredibly memorable and tends to whet
one’s curiosity and appetite to learn more and come
back. That’s why learning is really the new luxury. It
makes us feel like there’s more ahead of us, more to
discover, more to experience and more opportunities.
It makes people feel young.”20
While many travelers are taking baby steps into the
art world, some wealthy travelers are taking private
jets to Art Basel. In a study of private jet clusters,
the 2016 Knight Frank Wealth Report showed
private jet traffic to Art Basel Miami in December
grew 28% between 2012 and 2014, and draws 20%
non-American travelers; other main events on the
calendar include Art Basel in Switzerland, up 12%,
with 90% non-American flyers; the Frieze fair in the
UK, up 20%. Other reasons wealthy travelers take to
their jets are Oktoberfest in Germany, the Kentucky
Derby in May, Aspen Ideas Festival in June, and the
Monaco Yacht Show and Grand Prix, in September
and May respectively.
The growth in attendance and attraction of festivals
makes art as social as it is serious for wealthy
collectors. But even as people explore and gain
expertise in everything from foraging to wine,
connoisseurship in art is hard-earned.21
A group of
aficionados can be at the same festival and have
21c Museum Hotel, Louisville, Kentucky

15
very different agendas. Some spend wild amounts
of money chasing trends, others are decorating,
many are showing off and everyone’s partying with
one another, their gallerists and advisers. But just
a few make the understanding and collection of art
a lifetime pursuit. Those for whom collecting is also
connoisseurship – an investment in the spiritual,
emotional and intellectual – are in the minority,
just as they are among those who collect wine or
watches or any other rare, coveted, but also showy
and brag-worthy collectible.
New York collector Eric Schimmel told Resonance
that he’s devoted to a dozen artists; his approach is
academic, rigorous and investment-focused as well
as emotional. “Everyone is different,” he says. “There
are very serious collectors who have foundations
or sit on museum advisory boards – or open their
own museums. These are people who have made
art a major component of their lives. Then there are
billionaires who will fill offices with art because they
can get tax deductions. And I have friends who
decorate their homes with cool artwork, but they’re
not serious collectors.”
Schimmel is likely an exception in the hyper-sensitive
art world, where headlines like “Does a Sotheby’s
Stock Dip Signal Trouble for the Wider Economy?”22
can create volatility for unfocused, trend-susceptible
newbies. Today, as wealth grows and the wealthy
fan across the globe, new-monied young people
and international collectors have entered the market:
Knight Frank quotes an ARTnews report stating that
in 2015, the world’s top 200 art collectors came from
36 countries – compared with 17 in 1990 – and many
of these were from emerging markets like China and
Brazil.23
Schimmel concurs: “globalization is changing
things, and interest is much more worldwide.”
The generational shift in collectors is also driving
change: the U.S. Trust Insights on Wealth and
Worth said that older buyers collect “as a lifestyle,
as an extension of their autobiography; whereas
younger collectors tend to be much more
commercially driven.”24
Which makes the festival scene that much more
important. The festivals are art’s commercial
marketplace. Schimmel likes them because they
bring a world of work to his doorstep but they’re
eminently social – and while his New York hometown
is the world’s premier art market, he’ll go to London
for Frieze and Basel to see other collectors, keep
in touch with dealers from as far away as Colombia
and Africa, and visit galleries of artists working
on themes that interest him. And while Schimmel
gathers intelligence on artists from a wide range
of sources, inexperienced collectors rely almost
exclusively on advisers, whose roles are also
changing. New York-based Nilani Trent told NPR that
she once hoped clients would fall in love with work
on gallery tours; now they respond to the buzz at
events like Art Basel.
“I think instead of talking about the aesthetics of a
specific work, we really talk about the market,” she
says. “And I think for someone that doesn't have a
high level of connoisseurship, but is probably pretty
savvy on finance and wealth, talking about the
market is a very obvious go-to.”25
If younger collectors speak the language of
money, they’re also fluent in tech. Schimmel says
that even if he doesn’t go to festivals, he knows
exactly what’s going on. “I may not be at Basel,
but I can see everything that’s going to be shown.
I don’t have to be in front of the piece,” he says.
“Technology allows you to keep up with everything.
It also allows artists to have much more global
impact, and technology, along with the festivals, can
help generate interest in new markets, places like
China. Technology is powerful.”

17
03 | WELL, WELL, WELL
Once, there was a world without wellness; now
it’s ubiquitous. Today, “wellbeing,” a word that
includes health, comfort and happiness, is the
next addition to the vocabulary of health – and
to the aspirations of luxury travelers.
The wealthy have always been healthier than other
demographics. Resonance research shows the 1%
are also much more interested in fitness than all
other travelers, including their near-peers in the top
5%. The top 1% of travelers want far more of the
activities that once constituted the basic definition of
“wellness” – meditation, yoga and spa treatments –
than any other travelers.
But wellness is evolving, and so are the interests
of elite travelers. The very word wellness has
profoundly matured. Not long ago, the word was
amorphous: what did being “well” even mean? Why
wasn’t “healthy” adequate? And how did wellness
take over the world? “When I think of even five years
ago and using language about wellness, people
would cock their head to one side and be unsure
of what I was talking about,” former spa manager
turned wellness consultant Anni Hood told New York
magazine. “The boom we’re seeing, it’s just the tip of
the iceberg.”26
According to Spafinder, wellness is a
$3.4 trillion global industry today. If that’s just the tip
of the iceberg, the stuff underneath the water will be
impressive indeed.
From an ill-defined idea in the late ‘90s and early
aughts, “wellness” now seems self-explanatory. It
makes one better – not just newly relaxed or freshly
buffed, but improved, healed or rejuvenated. From
the inside out. It’s easy to imagine the glow.
In an experiential economy, “wellness” speaks to
every demographic. Millennials now care less for
handbags, and Boomers care more for longevity;
03
WELL, WELL, WELL

18
children, the aging and the obese can all benefit
from the new, expanded definition of wellness.
“We once called all of this pampering,” says Marisa
Meltzer in New York magazine. “Now we justify it
as self-care, necessary time spent for our health –
physical, spiritual, emotional. Even the time involved
in all of this is itself a kind of luxury.”27
Part of that time involves getting to places where
wellness can be profoundly experienced. Spafinder’s
2016 Trends Report remarked that for the first
time since it started tracking the industry, five of 10
trends were associated with wellness travel. The
variety of activities that have now been bundled
into wellness travel includes surf and SUP camps,
indigenous rebirth ceremonies, destinations that
combine “adrenaline and zen,” a variety of festivals,
from Wanderlust to Further Future, and a wave
of healthy new cruises. There’s Canyon Ranch at
sea, voluntourism, esoteric strains of yoga, cooking
classes, meditation and ropes adventures. All are
now being spun as wellness – lounging and lunging,
the mindful and the muscular. Wellness can be
conspicuous non-consumption (think fasting and
juicing) and inconspicuous having a little work
done, with perhaps some spiritual healing on the
side. “‘Wellness,’” says Lynn Zinser of The New
York Times, “can be... stretched to include eating
poke bowls and kale salads by day and enjoying
inebriating substances while the music pulsates late
into the night. The wellness part of that being that,
well, people were enjoying themselves.”28
“Wellness today is about celebration, not
deprivation,” says Amy McDonald, founder of Under
a Tree, an international consultancy of hospitality,
health and adult care specialists that has worked
in hospitality wellness and spas for two decades.
“It’s joyful, engaging and lively, proactive and
collaborative. Going to NYC and seeing the sights
and eating in a different restaurant in every borough
to experience a variety of cultures is wellness. Cirque
du Soleil’s ability to take people out of their mindsets
is part of wellness.”
Statistically significantly higher than top 5%.
Statistically significantly higher than US travelers.
Base: Enjoy regularly, enjoy occasionally or would like to try in A8
A9. Now more specifically, which of the following activities do you enjoy regularly, enjoy occasionally or would like to try?
Health Fitness
Working out 82% 81% 76%
Spa treatments 67% 76% 51%
Yoga 43% 49% 39%
Meditation 40% 45% 37%
Weight loss programs 32% 37% 32%
Medical treatments 31% 35% 29%
SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES ON VACATION
% Top-2-Box (Regularly/Occasionally)
TOP 5%
(N=1,659)
TOP 1%
(N=719)
TOP US TRAVELERS
(N=3,379)

19
We’re a long way from pampering.
McDonald said that wellness is now “the thread” that
weaves together many of the pleasures of the travel
experience – food, activities and programming,
local experience, rooms, eco- and voluntourism,
treatments, fitness.
Resonance research for the 2016 U.S. Luxury Travel
Report shows that virtually all travelers are interested
in learning new things, and many wellness offerings
have a built-in educational element. For luxury
travelers, the gamut of wellness experiences checks
many boxes. The possibilities are endless. Which is
what makes this all so lucrative.
American hotels, ever sensitive to trends that might
put more heads in beds, jumped quickly on the
wellness opportunity. IHG’s EVEN Hotels debuted in
Brooklyn in August 2016, the lifestyle hotel brand’s
fourth property. EVEN was created to allow guests
to “Eat Well, Rest Easy, Keep Active and Accomplish
More”; the new Big Apple property meets guests
with free filtered water, a natural light-filled Athletic
Studio, two-storey living green wall, ergonomically-
designed work spaces, and market-fresh menu
items throughout the location.29
McDonald says that for many resorts and urban
hospitality providers, keeping up with the ever-
changing definitions and directions of wellness is a
major preoccupation. “For some, wellness means
having a juice bar; others think it means you need
a nutritionist. I try to help them figure out how their
definition of wellness can be unique to them. What’s
special about your destination? What is there about
your location, the history, flora and fauna, that you
can teach people? How can you immerse people in
nature, even in an urban environment?”
Immersion is huge in wellness; travelers want to get
to the source of ideas, movements, cultures and
schools. “They want to go to the core,” McDonald
says. Themed wellness retreats of about four days
are satisfying the hunger for time-pressed seekers
– they pack the essential elements of wellness into
an easily consumed, brag-worthy package. A retreat
might include interesting food, a fitness component,
outdoor elements, a spa or treatment, maybe a
cultural element – and a little downtime. “Before,
people would get a blessing from an Apache elder.
Now they want to go where he lives and see his
community,” McDonald says. “Before, they would
be given beads. Now they want to make them
themselves. This is luxury.”
In Europe, the home of modern wellness, tourism
represents nearly 60% of the entire retail sector,30
according to the Global Wellness Institute – and
wellness tourism is expected to grow significantly
faster than other forms of visitation – a 7.3% growth
rate will continue through 2017. The institute sees
European wellness providers evolving from amenity-
driven exotic luxury retreats to wellness retreats
where “calm, simplicity, wild nature, spirituality and
profound self-seeking will be front and center… “new
stages for self-transformation and ‘re-finding’ oneself
in response to modern stresses.”

20

21
Europe should properly be considered a trend
leader in wellness, particularly as the industry
there shakes itself from inertia. The continent is
the heartland of intrinsic, holistic wellness, has a
wealth of wellness rituals North America has never
heard of, and several centuries of practicing them.
According to the Global Wellness Institute’s Ten
Predictions for the Future of Wellness, Travel, Spa
and Beauty in Europe, Kurs and bathing cures,
adapted for short-term stays, are growing; with
new wellness properties in Eastern Europe, like
Six Senses in Kazakhstan, as well as projects in
Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia and many other far-
flung (from a North American perspective) locales.
For luxury travelers, these destinations promise
wonderfully exotic nature-sourced treatments,
from microclimate doses of mineral water, sunlight,
contrasting temperature and humidity, to exposure
to phytoncides from forest bathing to “ancient
(and antioxidant) ‘black smoke saunas.’” Then
there are hot spring resort experiences that can
be packaged with the cultural richness of nearby
cities. For McDonald, the potential of the waters,
geothermal and otherwise, is the next frontier of
wellness. “People want a natural, real experience.
Water has become the key element of that. There’s
a renaissance in water-based wellness and bathing
everywhere in the world. We thought it was going to
be big, but it’s gone way beyond our expectations.”
Learning experience? Once in a lifetime?
Treatments? Fitness? Yes, yes, yes and yes.31
Can all this wellness spawn well-being, a true
happiness? Perhaps, with the wellness travel sector
set to exceed $600 billion in 2017, according to
the Global Wellness Institute.32
That would be the
ultimate in transformational experience, a universal
first prize. So you can bet that as more and more
people understand and consume wellness, and
more marketers get in the game, happiness will be
the next big promise.
“Wellness today is about celebration, not
deprivation. It’s joyful, engaging and lively,
proactive and collaborative.”
AMY MCDONALD, UNDER A TREE HEALTH AND WELLNESS CONSULTING

ART IS THE NEW FOOD
22Rosewood Beijing
PhotocourtesyRosewoodHotelBeijing

23
04 | H OSP I TALITY ’S ASIAN TURN
As Asian hospitality interests look overseas for
growth and aggressively buy up western brands,
they’re targeting wealthy travelers from around
the world. But they’re also looking ahead to
providing accommodation for the ever-growing
numbers of Asian leisure and business travelers.
Asian hotel brands have their sights set westward.
Certainly, with China becoming the largest outbound
travel market in the world – 120 million international
travelers who spent $194 billion in 2015 – the
opportunity is enormous. But Asian hotels aren’t just
looking for Asian travelers. They’re targeting wealthy
travelers of every nationality and proclivity.
“Our guests are sophisticated global travelers,
so we don’t cater specifically to a U.S. audience
or a new Asian clientele,” Rosewood Hotels
Resorts’ President Radha Arora told Resonance.
“Rather, we focus on designing our hotels to suit
the needs of discerning world travelers.” Competitor
Peninsula agrees. “Our policy is to open iconic
hotels in gateway cities, because that's where the
international business and leisure clientele are,”
Robert Cheng, vice-president of marketing for The
Peninsula Hotels, told the South China Morning
Post. “Now we're looking to the U.S. and Europe,
with even South America and India on our list.33
Hong Kong-based Peninsula opened its first
European hotel in 2014 in Paris, and plans a London
location on Hyde Park Corner by 2021. The $700
million proposal – 190 rooms, 24-28 residential
apartments and a 30-square-meter internal palazzo-
style courtyard34
– is creating one of the most highly
anticipated hotel openings, according to Forbes
Travel Guide.35
Peninsula operates only 10 five-star hotels around
the world – a fraction of those operated by western
04
HOSPITALITY’S ASIAN TURN

24
competitors like Four Seasons with 98 and the
Ritz-Carlton’s 87. Yet Peninsula is just as highly
regarded: when Resonance asked 1,667 U.S. luxury
travelers to rate 20 hotel brands, Peninsula ranked
among the top three, with an overall brand rating
of 81%, tied with Four Seasons and only 1% lower
than Ritz-Carlton. Peninsula receives high marks for
trustworthiness and quality of service, while fourth
place overall Mandarin Oriental is highly regarded by
wealthy U.S. travelers as well, receiving top marks
for style and design in our research.
Last year, Chinese firms bought $5.13 billion in U.S.
real estate and hotels, a 68% jump from the $3.05
billion they spent a year earlier, according to data
from the New York-based Rhodium Group, a firm
that tracks Chinese investments in the U.S.36
“And
hotels,” says Thilo Hanemann, economist for the
Rhodium Group, “have become especially attractive
to investors given the increase in Chinese tourists
visiting the United States and Europe.”37
Hong Kong’s Swire Hotels opened EAST, Miami this
year, its first property outside of China.38
“Miami will
experience considerable room demand growth by
2023, as affluent Chinese tourists are attracted to
its high-end shopping and entertainment offerings,”
reports the InterContinental Hotels Group in its
Future of Chinese Travel report.39
Shangri-La has
opened hotels in Vancouver, Paris, Toronto, Istanbul,
London and Qatar in recent years. Twenty additional
developments as far afield as Ghana and Saudi
Arabia are in the pipeline.40
Shangri-La is well aware
of the importance of familiarity with the habits of
outbound Chinese travelers. “They stay with us
because we give them a sense of home, says Greg
Dogan, CEO of Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts. “As
guests, they look to their familiar brands when they
travel the world.”41
Even wellness-focused Asian
brands are growing: Singaporean Banyan Tree
opened its second property in Mexico last year and
plans to double its portfolio internationally over the
next five years.42
But leisure travel isn’t the only reason for the Asian
expansion. China overtook the U.S. as the number
one business travel market in the world in 2015,
finishing with $291 billion in total business travel
spend, according to the Global Business Travel
Association’s (GBTA) Business Travel Index Outlook
– China 2016 H1.43
The report finds that by the end
of 2016, China will soar even further ahead, with
business travel spending forecast to grow 10.1% to
$320.7 billion, compared to 1.9% growth, or $295.7
billion, for the U.S.44
“It marks a major inflection point
and truly demonstrates the global nature of today’s
economy,” says GBTA Executive Director and COO
Michael W. McCormick.
As visitor numbers grow and brands expand, Asian
investors are also making their mark by purchasing
American icons.
The New York Palace Hotel in midtown Manhattan
was bought by Asia’s most successful luxury hotel
brand, Lotte Hotels Resorts, for $800 million in
May 2015; Lotte then announced plans to acquire 20
more properties overseas by 2020.45
“We think this
is very meaningful in that we’re entering the North
American market with New York’s historic hotel,”
Lotte President and CEO Song Yong Dok said at
the opening. “The New York Palace buyout is an
opportunity for the group as a whole to expand its
retail and confectionary businesses in the U.S.”46
Tourism developer and investment group
Zhonghong Holdings recently acquired iconic high-
end travel operator Abercrombie Kent, which has
been bringing a wealthy European and American
clientele on safari and to exotic travel destinations
since 1962 – a sign that investors are looking ahead
to servicing Asian visitors of an adventurous bent.47
Last year, Beijing-based Anbang Insurance Group
purchased New York’s landmark Waldorf Astoria
hotel for a then-record $1.95 billion. Now, plans
are in place to close the Waldorf in early 2017 for

25
Ritz-Carlton
Four Seasons
Peninsula
Mandarin Oriental
Aman
a top-to-bottom renovation that will convert more
than three-quarters of the hotel’s 1,413 rooms into
luxury condominiums.48
When Anbang’s attempt
to purchase Starwood Hotels Resorts earlier this
year didn’t go as planned, the company changed
targets. In March, it acquired Strategic Hotels
Resorts, along with 16 other U.S. luxury resorts
and hotels, including Four Seasons Washington,
D.C., the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco, and
the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel in Orange County,
California.49
The deal marked a record transaction for Chinese
buyers of American real estate.50
And while the
hotels’ ambiance and identities aren’t expected
to change as a result, the volume of purchases
has unsettled many: everyone from regulators to
President Obama have raised concerns over the
sheer quantity of real estate purchases by Chinese
investors. Obama broke an 80-year tradition by
opting to not stay at the Waldorf after it was sold to
Anbang,51
and earlier this year the Committee on
Foreign Investment in the United States reviewed 24
proposals for Chinese acquisitions of U.S. assets.52
While Anbang’s motive is “hunting for safer
investments overseas” – according to the
Washington Post’s Abha Bhattarai – the Hong Kong-
based Rosewood Hotel Group is seeking to offer
novelty to Chinese travelers.
“In Asia, there are already a lot of brands and very
sophisticated travelers who always want something
new. They are bored of staying in the same old
Ritz-Carlton or Four Seasons,” Sonia Cheng, CEO
of Rosewood Hotel Group told the Financial Times.53
The Rosewood Hotel Group (formerly New World
Hospitality) purchased Rosewood Hotels Resorts
in 2011 for $800 million. It opened in Beijing in
2014, and is scheduled to open in the Chinese and
southeast Asian locations of Guangzhou, Sanya,
Hainan, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Luang Prabang,
82%
81%
81%
74%
72%
MEAN DON’T KNOW
Base: All respondents (n varies)
A16b. On a ten point scale where 10 means “excellent” and 1 means “poor”, how would you rate [INSERT BRAND] overall?
*Note: Sample sizes for the Top 1% who are familiar with the luxury hotel brands are too small to report.
OVERALL BRAND OPINION: TOP 5%
10 - Excellent 9 8
8%8.6
12%8.6
23%8.3
23%8.3
19%8.5
33% 28% 21%
32% 30% 20%
22% 30% 29%
23% 28% 23%
33% 23% 16%

26
Bangkok, Phuket, Jakarta and Bali over the next
four years.
As U.S. brands fall into Chinese ownership, the
remaining independents are working to ensure
they don’t lose the race for Chinese business and
leisure travelers. Four Seasons uses a strategy for
retaining Chinese guests that’s true to their service
philosophy: Mandarin-speaking staff members are
available 24 hours a day to assist guests, according
to Scott Taber, senior vice president of rooms for
Four Seasons. “Serving these customers can be
as simple as having a local map or guest room
collateral translated into Mandarin,” Taber says.54
Interestingly, Hilton was the first global hotel brand
to introduce a customized hospitality experience for
Chinese travelers with its Hilton Huanying welcome
program. Simplified Chinese upon arrival, 24-hour
Mandarin interpretation services, Chinese menu
items like congee, rice and noodles, and amenities
like tea kettles, jasmine tea and slippers have served
more than one million Chinese globetrotters since its
beginnings in 2011.
China’s “tourism bonanza” has been compared
by Bloomberg’s Enda Curran to the “unleashing of
Japanese visitors on the world following the yen’s
appreciation in the mid-1980s.”55
Except that unlike
the Japanese, the Chinese outbound push “shows
no signs of abating.” While Japan’s real estate and
stock market bubbles burst, China’s travel bug
is continually being fed by a vast rural population
still to urbanize and a rapidly expanding middle
class, according to analysis by French investment
bank Natixis.56
And any dip in travel numbers will
be short-lived. The Chinese government aims to
move up to 81 million residents into urban zones by
2020, and by 2026, it hopes to move 250 million, a
policy designed to increase wealth that will further
bolster demand for outbound travel.57
Asian-owned
hotels will have the opportunity to make Asian
travelers, both business and leisure, feel at home
while overseas. But will the rest of the world be
comfortable as well?
As U.S. brands fall into Chinese
ownership, the remaining
independents are working to ensure
they don’t lose the race for Chinese
business and leisure travelers.

27
Rosewood Beijing
PhotocourtesyRosewoodHotelBeijing

ART IS THE NEW FOOD
28
While generations travel together
because they want to get closer, that
doesn’t mean they don’t need space.
And the wealthier the traveler, the
more space they need.

29
Multigenerational travel has been the biggest
trend in tourism for more than ﬁve years. Now
it’s changing the conﬁguration of resort and
second-home destinations as the wealthy
demand ever-larger lodgings to accommodate
extended families and friends – and sometimes,
entire communities.
America’s wealthiest travelers go to more places
in more ways than other travelers. And they want
everyone to come with them. Forty-five percent
of the top 1% want to vacation with friends – even
more than they want to take a family vacation with
kids (41%). And 30% want to take a multigenerational
vacation – all in numbers significantly higher than
total U.S. travelers. But to accommodate these new
luxury holiday tribes, with kids, friends and possibly
a grandparent in tow, hospitality providers and resort
destinations are rethinking the notion of family “unit.”
In primary residences, multigenerational residential
living is an old idea for cultures that have made the
U.S. their home – particularly Asian and Hispanic –
and it’s increasingly common among all races and
demographics in the U.S., a result of the recession
and longer-living Boomers.
Pew quotes U.S. census data showing that three-
generation households – grandparents, parents
and grandchildren – housed 26.9 million people in
2014. One in five Americans lived in households of
two adult generations in 2014, a record 60.6 million
people, or 19% of the U.S. population, up from
an all-time low of 12% in 1980.58
A normalization
of multigenerational primary-residence living is
underway in the U.S.
On vacation, it’s already in full swing. The AARP
says that vacations can produce a better quality
of what Resonance calls “Togethering” than other
05
TOGETHERING IS EVERYTHING
05 | TO GETHERING

30
05 | TO GETHERING
occasions, which may have the weight of tradition
bearing on them.59
Sixty-one percent of respondents
in an AARP study of multigenerational travel
said vacations were the “best way to spend time
together” for three generations. Indeed, the report
states that multigenerational vacations now account
for half of all vacations taken by both parents and
grandparents in the U.S.
AARP takes a particular interest in multigenerational
travel, since their members are often footing the
bill. The survey found that 35% of grandparents,
versus 25% of parents, said they pay for
multigenerational travel.
But while generations travel together because
they want to get closer, that doesn’t mean they
don’t need space. And the wealthier the traveler,
the more space they need. At Four Seasons Los
Cabos at Costa Palmas, 10,000-square-foot villas
on the beachfront have been designed specifically
for a new generation of wealthy travelers and
their entourages. At Four Seasons Resort and
Residences Anguilla, stand-alone $6-million villas
are attracting European and American families who
bring friends and family to stay for extended periods.
“One of our recent families decided to purchase
a 6,185-square-foot beachfront villa because they
have three small children, and the villa affords them
the size and privacy to enable the entire family,
along with a caregiver and grandparents, to vacation
together,” says Nick Cassini, director of sales for
Four Seasons Private Residences Anguilla. “They
said that this was one of the most important factors
in their decision-making.”
Short-term accommodation in hotels is also
expanding to service the highly lucrative
multigenerational market. Preferred Hotels Resorts
President and CEO Lindsey Ueberroth told Skift that
in 2014, 33% of adults that Preferred surveyed said
they spent more than $10,000 on a multigenerational
vacation, and 18% spent more than $15,000.60
Statistically significantly higher than Top 5%.
Base: All travelers
A6. What types of vacations will you take in the next 12 – 24 months?
Visit to a beach resort 43%
Visit to a major metropolitan city 39%
Vacation with friends 31%
Family vacation with kids 30%
Combining business trip with leisure vacation 14%
Cruise 24%
Multi-generational vacation 23%
Visit to a mountain resort 17%
Quiet countryside holiday 16%
TYPE OF FUTURE VACATIONS
% Considering
TOP 1%
(N=723)
TOTAL US TRAVELER
(N=3,379)
55%
45%
41%
33%
31%
30%
26%
21%
56%

31
05 | TO GETHERING
“This is multigenerational travel ‘2.0.’,” says
Ueberroth. “And these days, children are calling the
shots, grandparents are increasingly funding the
cost of the trip, and an overwhelming percentage
of Millennials – 91% of those surveyed – say a
multigenerational trip is something they try to take
every year.”61
With teenage children an integral part of destination
decision-making, grandparents’ needs to consider,
and harried parents at the heart of it all, the logistics
of multigenerational travel can be daunting – which
opens the door for travel advisers who can intuit
desires and unravel schedules. “Multigenerational
travel will grow as parents want to raise global
citizens,” Keith Waldon of Departure Lounge – an
innovative Austin-based advisory, coffee shop and
wine bar (!) – told Virtuoso delegates. “Kids today
have experiences that they will carry with them the
rest of their lives. Advisers become like family in
some ways – there is an opportunity here to form
lifelong relationships.”
Preferred Hotels Resorts is responding to the
trend by offering what it hopes is the next big thing,
a class of accommodation the company calls
Preferred Residences – “a worldwide collection
of exceptional villas, bungalows, condominiums,
and other idyllic units… that offer membership-
free vacation experiences that marry the flexibility,
space and privacy of a luxury residence with
the anticipatory service, bespoke amenities and
quality assurance of a personalized, world-class
independent hotel stay.”
At Rosewood Hotels Resorts, President Radha
Arora told Resonance his properties are offering
ever-larger suites, villas or residences from San
Miguel de Allende (residences), to Castiglion del
Bosco in Tuscany (villas) and Las Ventanas al
Paraiso in Cabo (signature villas). The Wall Street
Journal reported that Rosewood is increasing
the percentage of suites at its resort properties
to more than 40% of total rooms, up from around
30%, to accommodate strong demand.62
“These
multigenerational families that want to travel together
take up not just one room, two rooms but a handful
of rooms at the same time, driving the occupancy
up,” Arora told Fox News, adding that he believes
the phenomenon will grow stronger in the future.63
At hospitality brands favored by the top 1%
of American travelers, suites are in the sweet
spot. And for wealthy travelers accustomed to
multigenerational living in primary homes – from
places as different as Brazil, China and India
– they’re a natural. At the Mandarin Oriental in
Barcelona, the suites have an occupancy rate of
about 80%, higher than the hotel’s regular rooms. In
a new building nearby, 17 of the 22 new rooms will
be suites. Peninsula Hotels and Starwood Hotels
Resorts Worldwide Inc.’s luxury St. Regis brand are
adding the number of suites as they build new hotels
and renovate existing ones.64
The suites game has evolved as the definition of
luxury changes. Once designed to display and
communicate the obvious trappings of luxury, suites
are now expressions of a rich comfort. “(A suite)
was almost like a regal waiting room,” Paul James,
the then global brand leader for Starwood's St.
Regis, Luxury Collection and W brands, told the
Wall Street Journal in 2014. “You walked in and you
had lots of obvious earmarks of luxury – the gilding,
the bronze work, the marble.” Now, the largest
suites “should feel more like a high-end home,” he
says. Functionality is key – connecting rooms, more
bathrooms and closet space matter.
The combination of a need to spend worry-
free time together, worldly kids, and willing and
wealthy grandparents and parents bodes well for
multigenerational travel. And as those youngsters
spend family time in luxuriously functional
surroundings, there’s good news for both the hotel
industry and the business of resort homes.

Perhaps the most interesting innovation
in the vacation home sector is happening
in the space between vacation home rental
and vacation home ownership, the so-called
“Destination Clubs”.
HomeAway
PhotocourtesyHomeAway

33
06 | UNREAL REAL ESTATE
Ownership of a vacation home, or many homes,
has always been one of the most desirable
luxuries for the wealthy. But today, technology is
changing the way the afﬂuent access, use and
buy – or don’t buy – vacation properties around
the world.
The shift in luxury spending from goods to
experiences has been well documented, and since
2008, Resonance has been asking the most affluent
households in the U.S. what goods, services and
experiences they consider to be the most desirable.
For those for whom money is largely no object,
we’ve consistently seen that taking exotic vacations
is near the top of the list. In fact, the only luxury
considered more desirable than taking vacations is
owning a vacation home, which landed at the top of
the list in our survey of the wealthiest 1% in the U.S.
in 2015.
With the continued growth of multigenerational
luxury travel and “togethering” with family and
friends, it’s not surprising that vacation home
ownership continues to be an unwavering desire for
those who can afford it. What’s changing, however,
is the way we access and manage the vacation
home experience. While the role of technology
and influence of online travel agencies (OTAs) in
the distribution and sale of hotel nights is endlessly
discussed and debated in the travel and tourism
industry, technology has also given rise to new
platforms that are changing both the vacation rental
and vacation home sales industries.
Although Airbnb is a poster child for the so-called
sharing economy, the resort real estate industry
actually invented sharing decades before the sharing
economy existed with a product called timeshare
– an accessible way of owning a vacation home
through the purchase of a divided or “shared”
06
UNREAL REAL ESTATE

34
interest in a vacation property. For decades,
timeshare, whole ownership or renting a home or villa
through a property manager were the primary means
of accessing a vacation home experience (other than
staying with friends or family who owned one, of
course – and everyone would agree that these are
the best kinds of friends and family to have).
But just as Airbnb is disrupting the hotel industry
(and perhaps the apartment rental market even
more), so too are a number of new options and
platforms upsetting the traditional ways of renting
a vacation home – by allowing owners to directly
rent out their properties to consumers through
their websites, bypassing traditional property
management companies. Pioneers in the space
include Vacation Rentals by Owner (VRBO) and
HomeAway, which itself lists more than 1.2 million
properties in 193 countries. It’s a significant shift in
an industry estimated to generate more than $100
billion in revenue each year.
“While awareness of vacation rentals as an
accommodation option has grown in recent years,
still only 40% of Americans say they have ever
stayed in one,” HomeAway’s Vice President and
General Manager of North America Bill Furlong
told Resonance. “With a minority of people staying
in rentals, there’s still plenty of room for growth,
especially as companies like HomeAway increase
marketing, distribution and word-of-mouth.”
To cater to the luxury traveler, HomeAway has
created a separate site that features 9,000 luxury
properties that have been selected through a
HomeAway algorithm based on location, décor,
services, amenities and other factors. Property
listings are then manually reviewed by HomeAway
staff before being added to the luxury site.
Other emerging rental platforms include onefinestay,
an upscale version of Airbnb that specializes in luxury
homes and apartments in cities such as London,
Vacation home in the mountains or at the beach
Taking exotic vacations
Owning your own business
Extended time off work
Gourmet kitchen at home
MOST DESIRABLE GOODS, SERVICES EXPERIENCES
36%
32%
33%
35%
33%
50%
49%
49%
47%
47%
Base: Top 1% (n=724). C1. On a scale of 1-10, rate the desirability of each of the following luxury items and
experiences, with 1 being “not desirable” and 10 being “very desirable.”
9 - very important10 - Extremely important Statistically significantly higher than US travelers.

35
Rome, Paris and New York. Hyatt was an early
investor in the company, which was acquired earlier
this year by AccorHotels for €117 million. Will other
hoteliers follow suit or sit on the sidelines to see how
AccorHotels fares in the vacation rental business?
But perhaps the most interesting innovation in the
vacation home sector is happening in the space
between vacation home rental and vacation home
ownership. In so-called “Destination Clubs,” affluent
travelers pay a membership fee to access a curated
portfolio of serviced villas, apartments and homes
managed by the club. One of the fastest-rising stars
in the space is Inspirato, which has grown over the
past three years from 4,000 to more than 14,000
members who share the use of 700+ properties in
150 destinations around the world.
“That family time of sharing experiences and making
memories together is more important than ever,
which is why the vacation rental market and our
business is growing so quickly,” Inspirato Founder
and Chief Experience Officer Brian Corbett told
Resonance. “People want to share with others and
they want the luxury and the space of a private
home but they also want the service. They value
the curation, the experience and the certainty
that comes with staying in a vacation home that is
branded.”
Indeed, research by Resonance shows that for
wealthy travelers considering the purchase of a
vacation property, a Destination Club is now almost
as popular a choice as purchasing a vacation
condominium. And as the next generation of luxury
travelers grows up using services like Airbnb, and
becomes accustomed to staying in residential
environments, it seems likely that the popularity of
this model will grow for many years to come.
While some would argue that the growing popularity
of Destination Clubs and these new rental platforms
may reduce demand among the affluent for luxury
hotels, Inspirato’s Corbett says just the opposite
Statistically significantly higher than top 5%.
Base: All respondents
C2. Which of the following do you own now, are considering purchasing, would like to own one day, or would never consider purchasing?
Investment property 16% 19%
Vacation home 17% 19%
Home site to build vacation home in the future 16% 21%
Vacation condominium 13% 16%
Destination club membership 12% 14%
Private residence club membership 11% 15%
Hotel condominium 11% 14%
VACATION PROPERTY PURCHASE CONSIDERATION
% Considering
TOP 5%
(N=1,667)
TOP 1%
(N=724)

ART IS THE NEW FOOD
36
is true. He says their members increasingly look
to Inspirato to curate and manage all of their leisure
travel experiences, so the club has aggressively
selected and negotiated with hotels around the
world to offer preferred rates to their members,
who are frequently looking for weekend urban
getaways as well. “We have added a lot of urban
and metropolitan options because that’s a big
trend,” Corbett says. “We have lots of demand for
New York, London, San Francisco, Paris, London,
Rome. We will do about 15% of our nightly rate
revenue in hotels this year, and most of that is in
urban destinations.”
Ironically, when it comes to whole ownership,
HomeAway’s Furlong says the rise of new platforms
to rent out vacation homes, which typically sit
unoccupied for much of the year, is also making the
economics of whole ownership more appealing.
“Renting a vacation home is certainly a more
affordable alternative to buying one, and it provides
the flexibility to visit new markets and travel with
groups of various sizes,” says Furlong. “However,
owning a second home can be more affordable
than many realize. On average, those who list their
home on HomeAway.com generate $28,000 in rental
income per year and 70% are able to cover half or
more of their mortgages.”

37
“That family time of sharing experiences
and making memories together is more
important than ever, which is why the
vacation rental market and our business
is growing so quickly.”
BRIAN CORBETT, INSPIRATO
PhotocourtesyInspirato
Inspirato

ART IS THE NEW FOOD
38
Four Seasons Los Cabos Private Villa at Costa Palmas, Mexico
*Artist’s Rendering

39
07 | WARM IS THE NEW COOL
07
WARM IS THE NEW COOL
Hospitality design once placed wealthy travelers
in an opulent bubble. Then came contemporary
interiors, with their rariﬁed materials and clean,
hard edges. Now, luxury has warmed up to its
surroundings and opened up to the outdoors.
But the wow remains.
We live in restless times. We’re urbanized and
hurried, detached from the natural world and distant
from one another – and wealthier demographics,
whose members juggle high-pressure occupations
and the tug of family and friends, feel it keenly. At
every level of wealth, hospitality has responded
through design that helps travelers be more in
touch with the places they visit, the landscape that
surrounds them and themselves.
In the Resonance 2016 Portrait of the U.S. Millennial
Traveler, interior design and style ranked highly
among Mobile Millennials – those who have traveled
internationally at least once in a year. Among the
wealthiest of travelers, interior design/style is even
more important when it comes to choosing a hotel.
Certainly, Airbnb, onefinestay and other hospitality
providers of the experience economy make people
feel at home – famously “living like a local” – in a
destination. Now big hospitality flags in both urban
and resort destinations are creating spaces where
spectacular design, even the most contemporary,
provides warmth and connection to people and
place – just as it offers uniquely fresh, stimulating
experiences that they say visitors and potential
residence owners can’t get from simply hanging out
in someone’s house.
For the wealthy, design needs to be about more
than having access to a luxurious home away
from their luxurious homes. Make no mistake – the
luxury traveler may feel at home in a destination,

40
but these places are nothing like being at home.
This is comfort combined with surprise; ease with
inspiration. They offer a deeper experience.
Todd-Avery Lenahan, the owner of TAL Studio, has
designed interiors for the likes of Four Seasons,
Mandarin Oriental, Shangri-La and Auberge
Resorts. “We believe the accomplished individual
is actually looking for something that’s a really
wonderful departure from what they experience in
their fine homes every day,” he says. “It needs to
still anticipate them and meet their expectations in
terms of function, utility and supreme comfort. But in
terms of the overall ambient tenor and the emotional
experience, we actually really push to create
experiences that add a new dimension or a new
texture to their life. I think for a destination resort
experience, offering this expanded view of the world,
a different set of emotional textures, dimensions
and atmospheric experiences is really what the
discerning and evolved luxury traveler is expecting.”
In TAL Studio’s most recent design for the new Four
Seasons Los Cabos at Costa Palmas, the textures
and experiences seamlessly integrate residences
and landscape, contemporary design and vernacular
warmth. Rather than overwhelm its site, the strikingly
modern architecture is designed to allow the
landscape to shine through; rather than offering a
uniformly modern cool, of-the-moment interiors are
paired with furniture palettes and finishes with “a
high degree of ethnicity and rusticity”; and rather
than create a protective bubble of luxury, the line
between inside and out blurs.
“We're moving to something that is a bit more
reductive and a bit more organic,” says Lenahan.
“People don’t want to feel like they're trapped in a
little windowed aquarium room with air diffusers over
their head. They're okay to feel a little bit warmer,
they're okay to really feel like they're getting an
authentic experience in a region of the world that is
totally different than what they touch and feel every
Free internet access
Privacy
Swimming pool
Beach
Hotel restaurant
Fitness center
Walking distance to shopping/restaurants
Concierge service
Proximity to must-see attractions
Lobby lounge and bar
Interior design/style
DESIRABLE HOTEL AMENITIES: TOP 1%
US TRAVELERS
58%
46%
36%
37%
33%
30%
22%
20%
21%
36%
20%
51%
34%
35%
32%
27%
26%
24%
22%
21%
21%
21%
66%
53%
50%
49%
43%
40%
39%
37%
35%
35%
35%
Base: Top 1% (n=723). A12. On a scale of 1-10, rate the desirability of each of the following features and amenities
when choosing a place to stay on your vacation, with 1 being “not desirable” and 10 being “very desirable.”
9 - very important10 - Extremely important Statistically significantly higher than US travelers.

41
day in their lives back in Toronto or London or
San Francisco.”
At its best, Lenahan says, that experience allows
them to “touch the face of the place” – to feel a
visual, emotional and textural intimacy with the
destination. “That connection is a big validator for
people in terms of why they choose a property and
how it becomes endearing.”
This desire to feel the “face”, the essence or sense
of place is affecting design in urban settings as well.
Places like Starwood’s new 1 Hotel Central Park
are deliberately warm and decidedly cool. The hotel
uses organic materials in a “just-sprung-from-nature
sense” writes Forbes’ Ann Abel.65
The front doors
are composed of 16,000 twigs and the floors and
walls are made from reclaimed wood. “Nothing is
ever lost” is written in an assortment of mosses,
fabrics and bits and pieces on a lobby wall.
The Fairmont Austin, set to open in summer 2017,
is located near Palm Park and Waller Creek, and
is billed as both a hotel in a park and a park in a
hotel. Guests will be greeted by two 24-foot-high
by 26-foot-wide heritage oak trees flanking the
reception desk, and interiors and public spaces
were inspired by the ecosystem of Waller Creek,
with “indigenous greenery and cultural references
throughout the hotel’s interior.”66
There’ll also be
the Red River Canopy Walk, a 33-foot-tall elevated
connection from Fairmont Austin to the Austin
Convention Center, which will allow the public and
guests to view Waller Creek and Palm Park from
above. The pedestrian bridge will include a stairway
and ramp leading to Palm Park and three miles of
new hike and bike trails.
Warm, inviting and comfortable, yes. Seamlessly
indoor-outdoor? Pretty much. Home? This is way
more exciting than home.
At the far end of the integration-with-nature
spectrum are visionaries like French firm MM
Architects Designers Planners, which is attempting
to put guests in touch with the landscape in a more
radical fashion.
“Nesting” involves modular constructs above ground
where people can meet, work, sleep and live, as
well as interact with natural surroundings in an urban
environment – which is where 70% of us will be
living by 2050.67
“Our basic concern in hospitality
is the new urban landscape,” says MM architect
and designer Marc Mussche, who suggests that
Nesting-type hotels could also help finance city park
maintenance in the future.68
TAL Studio’s Lenahan maintains that hospitality
offers one of the last opportunities to design
environments that actually helps people slow down.
“We can immerse people in a storytelling narrative
and provoke certain emotions, guide them into
a certain mood, and share the kind of emotional
temperatures that are completely missing from
their everyday.”
“We believe the accomplished individual
is actually looking for something that’s a
really wonderful departure from what they
experience in their fine homes every day.”
TODD-AVERY LENAHAN, TAL STUDIO

ART IS THE NEW FOOD
42
PhotocourtesyToughMudder
Tough Mudder

43
08 | ATH L ETIC PURSUITS
As extreme athletics take the place of golf
as the go-to pastime for a new generation
of executives, destinations and hospitality
providers have new opportunities to attract
a wealthy demographic that will go anywhere
and spend what it costs to maximize their
ﬁtness and improve their results.
The old adage “health is wealth” is a reassuring
sentiment for those who don’t have, well, the wealth.
But for the rich, the saying could well be “wealth
is health”: The New York Times reports that about
90% of the top 1% describe themselves as being
in excellent or good health, compared with 75%
of everybody else. Similarly, the Resonance 2016
U.S. Luxury Travel Report found that the top 1% of
American travelers are likely to participate in health
and fitness on vacation 78% of the time, compared
to just 60% for general travelers.
Luxury hotel brands have realized this and are
targeting the fitness-minded luxury traveler. Four
Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills has 200
in-room workout videos, and it partners with the
celebrity fitness firm Blue Clay Fitness for workouts
and hikes to nearby Runyon Canyon. The fitness
center at the Four Seasons in L.A. is the city’s only
exclusively outdoor hotel gym, offering guests an all-
access pass to the California sun. Ritz-Carlton Bal
Harbor in Miami recently opened a 10,000-square-
foot Exhale spa and movement studio for yoga
classes and Core Fusion, an intense strength and
cardio program involving ballet barres and weights.
Not only are hotels taking the fitness business
seriously, gyms are getting into the hospitality
business. Upscale gym Equinox, which boasts
as many as one million members worldwide –
and memberships at $230 per month – recently
08
ATHLETIC PURSUITS

44
Dining
Sightseeing
Learning new things
Visiting cultural attractions
Engaging with nature
Fun attractions
Shopping
Health fitness
Nightlife
Participating in outdoor sports
Participating in a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ activity
Watching live sports
Attending music festivals
Personally participating in athletic competitions
Volunteering
announced it is venturing into the hospitality
world with its first hotel in Manhattan's Hudson
Yards district. “The demand for fitness and high-
performance living has never been greater, and
we don’t see it slowing down,” Equinox Chief
Marketing Officer Carlos Becil told Condé Nast
Traveler. “We believe that to maximize results and
reach your goals, you need to place equal focus
on, and carefully plan, how you move, nourish, and
regenerate your body.”
Luxury travelers are also about measuring their
results. Mere health isn’t enough for this cohort –
fitness has to be proven. Resonance data shows
that many more one percenters participate in athletic
competitions like Ironman and triathlon events than
travelers in general – 46% to 31%. Unsurprisingly,
many of these are top executives.
The average annual household income for
Ironman participants is $247,000, according to
a 2015 survey conducted for the World Triathlon
Corporation.69
The grueling 2.4-mile swim, 112-
mile cycle and then 26.2-mile marathon isn’t for
the faint of heart, nor for the feeble of funds. For
instance, when Marc Blumencranz competed in
the 2013 Ironman Triathlon World Championships
in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, he spared no expense. To
ACTIVITIES ON VACATION: TOP 1%
WOULD LIKE TO TRY REGULARLY/OCCASIONALLY
Base: All respondents (n=723)
A8. While on vacation what activities do you enjoy regularly, enjoy occasionally, would like to try, or do not enjoy?
Would like to try Regularly OccasionallyHigher than top 5% Lower than top 5%
42%16%29%
46%17%16%
65%18%20%
66%27%15%
69%31%25%
74%41%11%
75%23%13%
78%38%11%
83%41%7%
85%37%10%
85%37%10%
85%40%7%
90%45%5%
90%53%8%
91%62%6%
94%76%5%

45
prepare, Blumencranz – the managing director at
the insurance brokerage and wealth-management
firm BWD – rented a house and a block of hotel
rooms for the 10 days leading up to the race, hired
a private chef to prepare his meals, then flew to
Hawai‘i with his wife, daughter, coach, massage
therapist and physical therapist. The total estimated
cost was $100,000.70
The registration fee alone
for a full-distance Ironman is approximately $650,
and the shorter Ironman 70.3 costs about $300,
according to Fortune Magazine.71
In 2014, Ironman
saw 200,000 athletes cross its finish lines compared
with 60,000 in 2009.72
In 2015, Ironman generated
upwards of $183 million in revenue, and saw a 21%
increase in revenue over the previous four years.
Then, in August 2015, Ironman cashed out. The
organization sold to Chinese conglomerate Dalian
Wanda Group for $650 million.73
Ironman may be one of the most successful athletic
competition brands in the world, but it now faces
competition from fast risers such as CrossFit, Tough
Mudder and Spartan. But Ironman’s edge, and
attraction for the 1%, is the equipment athletes get to
indulge in. “I don’t know if it’s a rich person’s sport,
but it’s certainly an upscale person’s sport,” says
Dr. Steven Jonas, a public health professor at Stony
Brook University, longtime triathlete and author of
the best-selling Triathloning for Ordinary Mortals. “To
run a marathon, you need a pair of shoes, a pair of
shorts and maybe a water bottle. To do a triathlon,
you need a lot more.”74
So how much does it cost to compete in a triathlon?
With all the bells and whistles – road bike, cycling
shoes, helmet, sunglasses, hydration supplements,
extra tires for your bike, wetsuit, digital timing
devices, racing shoes, training equipment and
facilities as well as race fee, travel and lodging
in exotic race locations – costs can run between
$7,000 and $26,000, according to The Globe and
Mail.75
The Wall Street Journal goes further, reporting
the bike alone can cost as much as $20,000 with all
the trimmings.76
Ted Kennedy of CEO Challenges, a company that
organizes physical challenges like triathlons and
marathons for CEOs, told Resonance that “cycling
is one of the only sports in the world where you can
buy speed. CEOs love to geek out and spend to get
the coolest and fastest bike.”
CEOs, in fact, flourish on the intensity of many kinds
of athletic competitions. A 2014 German study
“Cycling is one of the only sports in the
world where you can buy speed. CEO’s love
to geek out and spend to get the coolest
and fastest bike.”
TED KENNEDY, CEO CHALLENGES

46
published in the Social Science Research Network
found that CEOs who run marathons are more likely
to run companies with higher firm values. After
reviewing more than 2.5 million race finishes, the
researchers identified 9,549 finishes by 2,694 CEOs
and found that fit CEOs manage companies that on
average have firm values of almost 5% higher.77
One such would be former Twitter CEO Dick
Costolo. In 2016, six months after stepping down
from Twitter, Costolo announced plans to create his
own software platform “that reimagines the path to
personal fitness.78
Costolo’s own Twitter feed,
@dickc, is highly regarded among fitness CEO
buffs in the Bay Area, “where every other executive
you meet is a competitive cyclist or dedicated rock
climber.”79
He alternates sessions of CrossFit and
SoulCycle on weekdays and biking in the Marin
County hills on the weekends, a routine he told Inc.
com was integral to his ability to run a large, fast-
changing organization. “Everybody in the company's
working a very large number of hours on any given
week, and doing things like this gives you the energy
to grind through all that and not be completely worn
down and unhealthy,” he said.80
Costolo isn’t the
only “high performance net worth executive”; CEO
Challenges has 1,800 of them in its database.
Ted Kennedy’s CEO Challenges plays to the psyche
of the high net worth athlete whose brain never
stops looking to conquer the next big challenge.
The business model is quite simple: Kennedy
targets a dozen particularly high-profile triathlons
and events, pays in advance to reserve as many
slots as he needs of the few thousand available, and
CEOs pay Kennedy not only for the precious slot
but also for his help with handling logistics, such
as booking hotel rooms, shipping their bikes and
equipment, arranging shuttle services and keeping
family members updated on race day.81
“The affluent
people I deal with aren’t afraid to do the work, but
they don’t want anything to do with logistics – and
they’re willing to pay someone like me to take care of
it,” Kennedy told Resonance.
Tough Mudder
PhotocourtesyToughMudder

47
When Resonance asked Kennedy when executives
find the time to train, he said that they can survive
on less sleep than most people. “They get up
early...4:30 am to do an hour and a half of training,
and are at their desks by seven.” Yet increasingly,
time management is a factor in the types of events
CEOs enter. “Sprints are becoming more and more
popular compared to Ironman,” says Kennedy. “True
Wall Street Fortune 500 CEOs can’t compete in
several Ironman [events] per year, but they have no
problem fitting several short distance, cycling and
triathlon events into their schedule.” Which sounds
a lot like the issue with golf, a game that inevitably
consumes the better part of a day.
Kennedy says a growing trend is that CEOs crave
variety: they don’t want to attend the same meetings
and conferences that they have in the past. “Invite a
CEO to a hockey, football or baseball game or golf
tournament and they don’t go anymore,” he says.
“But invite a CEO to take part in a triathlon event,
they’ll not only show up and compete, but they will
be engaged for four to five days.” USA Triathlon CEO
Rob Urbach referred to triathlon as “the new golf in
the boardroom” in an email to Resonance. As many
executives are taking up triathlon and becoming
involved in other multisport disciplines, according to
Urbach, destinations are waking up to the extreme
economic opportunity that goes with extreme
athletics.
Just over $10 million was the direct impact on the
local Chattanooga economy after it hosted a 2014
Ironman event.82
Lake Placid estimates a $15.4
million impact when it hosts the Ironman 70.3 World
Championships in 2017.83
The Woodlands in Texas
estimates a similar $15 million impact each year
it has hosted an Ironman event,84
and the list and
dollar amounts go on and on for other U.S. cities.
Spartan races and Tough Mudder events are not as
large in impact as Ironman, but allow cities to wet
their feet in the lucrative business.
“Invite a CEO to a hockey, football, baseball
game or golf tournament and they don’t go
anymore, but invite a CEO to take part in
a triathlon event, they’ll not only show up
and compete, but they will be engaged for
four to five days.”
TED KENNEDY, CEO CHALLENGES

ART IS THE NEW FOOD
48Private dining at Tarkuni Safari Camp, South Africa
PhotocourtesyBlackTomato

49
09 | TRIP. ADVISERS.
Luxury travelers want advisers, not agents; they
seek connoisseur-level experts who cultivate
relationships and deep knowledge of individual
needs in order to assemble experiences as
unique as the people who will enjoy them. The
advisers who will ﬂourish in the future are those
who can combine the human element with
innovative uses of technology.
Resource-rich but time-poor individuals have
spurred the growth of industries devoted to
advising them on how best to plan, invest, buy a
home and spend their vacations. They don’t go
to the bank, they get financial advice and wealth
management; they don’t have real estate agents,
they have property advisers; their art collections are
co-selected with curators. And so it is with travel.
From travel agencies, travel advisers and curators
have been born – by the thousands. And business
is booming. In the 2016 U.S. Luxury Travel Report,
Resonance research shows that 39% of the top 1%
book trips with travel agents, as do 32% of the top
5% of travelers – both significantly higher than the
general traveling population; in its 2016-2017 Portrait
of American Travelers report, MMGY Global notes
that only 16% of travelers in general use an agent.
The rest of the world will scroll through 38 sites
before booking, according to Expedia, first to look
for information and then to compare prices.85
But
busy high net worths don’t care to compare prices
online, and don’t see the value of discounts.
What they do care about is relationships and
expertise. Among providers large and small,
Virtuoso, which describes itself as “the travel
industry’s leading luxury network” is there to offer it.
Virtuoso, which is made up of both travel advisers
and travel partners like hotels, cruise lines and tour
operators, meets twice yearly; at 2016’s Virtuoso
09
TRIP. ADVISERS.
With additional reporting from Siobhan Chretien.

50
Travel Week in Vegas, more than 5,000 attendees
from 98 countries took part, up from 98 attendees
at the first event, the quaintly named Virtuoso Travel
Mart held in Palm Springs in 1989.
Indeed, the growth of specialized travel agencies
has been nothing short of phenomenal. Forbes
reported that in 2014, Virtuoso’s 9,800 agents sold
over $14 billion in travel, slightly more than Orbitz,
which had $12.4 billion in sales. Small matter that
both were far behind Expedia and Priceline Group,
which each registered $50 billion in revenues. Travel
is a big enough pie for all to share.86
At this year’s Travel Week, Virtuoso CEO and
founder Matthew Upchurch told the crowd that
“Travel advisers are the hottest thing that never went
away.” The secret at the high end has been in the
industry’s evolution from booker of travel to co-
conspirator with travelers, and fittingly, the theme of
this year’s event was “Luxury is Personal.”
“You can’t put a price on the freedom you get
with having the expertise of a good travel adviser,”
Producer Elan Gale of Bachelor/Bachelorette
fame told Resonance. “Celebrities and the 1%
want advisers and this will only grow. The agent is
insurance.”
“I work with clients long term,” says Susan Farewell
of Farewell Travels, “seeing their travel needs in
terms of five-year chunks. We develop a five-year
travel plan for them, which we revisit every year.
So I get questions like, ‘Where are we going this
summer?’ They assume I have already thought it
through for them based on their past trips, their kids’
ages, and the five-year plan we designed.”87
At Indagare, former Town Country Travel magazine
travel editor Melissa Biggs Bradley combines her
journalism connections and experience to offer a
mix of travel writing with highly customized itinerary
planning. Like many others, her connections provide
her community with insider perks, deals and special
treatment.
For elite travelers, advisers are tasked with making
sure that trips go off without a hitch, and the
Specific hotel/resort/airline brand website
Travel website
Over the phone with the specific
hotel/resort/airline central reservations
Travel agent
Tourism destination’s website
Other
BOOKING METHOD
TOP 1% (N=673)
72%
56%
38%
39%
22%
4%
Base: All respondents
A6b. In the past 12 months, which of the following have you used to book your vacation travel?
Statistically significantly higher than Top 5%. Statistically significantly lower than Top 5%.

51
pressure to be responsive is high. Kimberly Wilson
Wetty of Valerie Wilson Travel, a 30-year-old firm
that pioneered the relationship advisory, says, “We
compete against time. It’s challenging as people
want information yesterday.” Wilson thoroughly
understands her clients’ goals, scrupulously logs
their travel history and keeps abreast of changing
interests so she can make timely, proactive
suggestions.
Advisers are as varied as clients, and range from
former travel aficionados and journalists to Wall
Street types who know luxury and relationships and
are switching careers. Looking forward, though,
relationships will be just one part of the equation,
and advisers must continue to innovate in order to
differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded
field. “To pioneer, we must be curious, and that
includes what intimidates us,” CEO Upchurch told
Virtuoso delegates. Enrique Felgueres of Felgueres
Travel Group of Mexico told the assembled that
“Content, human connection and tech are key for
travel agency success today.”
Decidedly, one of the most innovative of the high-
touch firms is London’s Black Tomato. The boutique
firm offers a “Bucket List Service” to help people
create, plan and carry out lifetime travel goals. It
also sends out quirky “20 Questions” travel guides
designed to help people discover places as travelers
did in the days before guidebooks and internet – by
“encouraging conversations and discovering where
they will take you.” Black Tomato has entered into
a brand collaboration with Cadillac that sheds
gorgeously inspiring light on a destination and a
local resident, and the firm sees partnerships with
brands from fashion to wine as growing drivers of
travel.88
Now Black Tomato is offering travelers the
opportunity to capture travel memories from the
perspective of a drone operated by a shooter who
may have worked on the James Bond or Star Trek
films.89
Black Tomato CEO and founder Tom Marchant told
the Virtuoso delegates that although technology
shapes everything in travel, “at the heart of it is the
human. Technology can suck the heart out of travel.”
This insight isn’t lost on luxury accommodation
providers like onefinestay, which is Internet-based
but promises “handmade hospitality”, nor on luxury
hospitality flags, which are treading the fine line
between tech convenience via apps and other
conveniences and the personal touch that grows
loyalty.
As the number of advisers grows, the business will
more and more resemble that of other consultants
to the wealthy: those that develop deep personal
relationships that combine trust and competency –
who can make trips as individually relevant as they
are effortless – will thrive. And it won’t be easy: with
multigenerational travel ever more popular, advisers
will have to have intimate connections with not just
one family, but with three or four.
“Travel advisers are the
hottest thing that never
went away.”
MATTHEW UPCHURCH, VIRTUOSO

ART IS THE NEW FOOD
52Four Seasons Private Jet
PhotocourtesyFourSeasonsHotelsandResorts

53
10 | HIGHER FLYERS
It used to be that a vacation didn’t really start
until travelers had checked into the hotel, found
a quiet spot by the pool and taken that ﬁrst sip
of wine. But for wealthy, experience-seeking
travelers, carriers are making the getaway
begin before the plane even takes off. And in
a world where ﬂying is drudgery, the journey
is once again becoming as memorable as the
destination.
“We are witnessing an important shift in mind-set
when it comes to the airport experience and it’s
clear that today's frequent flyers no longer view
themselves as passengers merely transiting the
airport, but as consumers seeking more rewarding
travel journeys,” says Stephen Simpson, global
marketing director for Priority Pass, which
offers frequent fliers access to independent
airport lounges.90
Resonance data in the 2016 U.S. Luxury Travel
Report revealed the top 1% prefer a destination
that is easily accessible by commercial flights
when compared to general U.S. travelers – 45% to
35%. Now, as security has tightened and air travel
has become increasingly tedious, commercial
airlines are going to great lengths to make travelers
comfortable after they pass through the body
scanner. “Heightened security has driven the rise
of the airport spa,” George Hammer, chairman of
luxury hair and beauty salon Urban Retreats – which
has locations in major global airports – told the
Financial Times.91
Long-haul travellers often have
time in between their flights, sometimes a few hours,
in which they're confined to the airport.
At the airport, airlines themselves are tempting
affluent travelers with luxury amenities they once
could only enjoy at their destinations. This summer,
10
HIGHER FLYERS

54
10 | HIGHER FLYERS
Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab
Emirates, unveiled its new ultra-luxury lounge and
spa in Abu Dhabi International Airport. The lounge
features 16 unique zones. “Almost every conceivable
recreational activity can be indulged in, whether
it’s smoking Cohiba cigars, working out in the
fitness room, or chilling on a reclining lounger while
watching soothing images on a panoramic video wall
made up of 27 individual screens,” Jessica Hill writes
in the UAE newspaper The National.92
“The lounge
was created to ensure a seamless transition from the
airport to the airplane,” says Shane O’Hare, Etihad’s
senior vice-president of marketing. Whilst this
physical environment is truly remarkable, we have
placed special emphasis on creating an aspirational
luxury lifestyle space in line with our legendary
inflight service offering. The result is the finest airline
lounge and spa experience in the world.93
In the U.S., competition among commercial carriers
to attract the luxury traveler has always been intense.
But with bankruptcies and mergers in their rearview
mirrors and low fuel prices helping profits, airline
clubs in the U.S. are getting an upgrade.94
“Airlines
are flush with profits from continued low oil prices.
Now is the time to re-invest in improvements,” Mike
Oshins, hospitality management professor at Boston
University told The New York Times. “The ambience,
service and amenities of the airport lounge is a
tangible representation of the luxury service of
the airline, and one area to focus on after some
neglect.”95
American Airlines is spending $3 billion to improve
more than 50 of its Admirals Clubs.96
Delta is
updating its 50 Delta Sky Clubs around the world
with redesigned food displays, relaxing background
music and a signature scent in the lobby.97
United
Airlines is opening its new Polaris lounges for
business class passengers flying internationally,
featuring custom-designed chairs, private daybeds,
spa-like showers and chef-inspired hot meals
served in a boutique restaurant.98
But it’s not only
airlines that are reacting to the trend. American
Safety 58%
Favorable climate/weather 47%
Easily accessible by commercial flights 35%
Scenery and nature 38%
Opportunities to learn something new 32%
KEY DECISION FACTORS WHEN DECIDING ON A VACATION DESTINATION: TOP 1%
37%
27%
25%
25%
19%
TOTAL US TRAVELERS
Base: All respondents (n=723).
A7. On a scale of 1-10, what are the most important factors you take into account when deciding
on a vacation destination, with 1 being not important at all and 10 being extremely important?
910 - Extremely important Statistically significantly higher than US travelers.
56%
50%
45%
40%
35%

55
10 | HIGHER FLYERS
With bankruptcies and
mergers in their rearview
mirrors and low fuel prices
helping profits, commercial
airline clubs in the U.S. are
getting an upgrade.
Express operates its high-end Centurion lounges
– six of them – throughout the country, offering
complimentary chef-prepared meals, soundproof
rooms for children and, in some, free 15-minute
massages and manicures. Four Seasons opened
the Four Seasons Lana‘i airport lounge in Honolulu
in 2014. “The arrival and departure experience is
under-tapped within the hospitality industry,” Lana‘i
property resort manager Charles Fisher told The
New York Times, adding that the lounges offer an
on-brand experience long before visitors step onto
the property.99
Airlines have a separate entry at Los Angeles
International Airport for the richest of the rich...
celebrities. They get expedited check-in without
having to fend off paparazzi, and enter the TSA
screening area through a private hallway. LAX is
constructing a separate entry lounge for those willing
to pay as much as $1,800 per trip, according to the
Los Angeles Times.100
On board, some airlines have decided that less is
more when it comes to making wealthy travelers
comfortable – less first class, that is. According
to an analysis by Airways News,101
a slew of U.S.
and international carriers have eliminated first class
cabins on international flights because private jet
travel is more affordable and business class is
getting better and better.
United, Delta, Cathay, Singapore, Qatar, Lufthansa
and Air India have all removed first class cabins
on select international flights. United Airlines is
improving business class by installing sleeping pods
instead of seats, and has partnered with Saks Fifth
Avenue to enhance the business class experience
with custom bedding. “Following 12,000 hours
of research that went into the design of this new
service, United found that business class travelers
singled out sleep as their top concern,” reports
Luxury Daily.102
Cathay Pacific has left the first class
cabin off its new Airbus A350-900s and its larger
and newer A350-1000s, including only business

ART IS THE NEW FOOD
56
10 | HIGH FLYERS
class, premium economy and regular economy
seating.103
Qatar Airways’ new A350s have no first
class, nor does Singapore Airlines’ new A350, which
debuted in March.104
Air India decided to get rid of
the first class cabin on the three 777-200LR aircrafts
that it uses for its Delhi-San Francisco route due
to poor performance. Airline officials told the India
Times that the occupancy rate for seats in the front
cabin was only reaching about 25%, compared to
30%-35% for business class.105
“The experience
isn’t good enough,” was the blunt assessment of
AirwaysMag.com Senior Business Analyst Vinay
Bhaskara.106
“There are still some travelers who crave
that more exclusive experience – but today, they are
more likely than ever to opt for private jets.”107
Indeed, the line between first class, business class
and private jets grows ever more blurred, according
to Jonathan Kletzel, U.S. transportation and logistics
leader at PwC. “Recent improvements to business
class, such as seats that recline into beds, leave little
room to differentiate the two services. Once you’re
lying flat and you’ve got your own personal screen
and you’re getting a nice dinner, the distinction
comes down to nicer wines and plusher pillows.”108
The decreasing cost of private jet travel has made it
easier than ever to rationalize, and new technology
has produced larger business jets with much
greater range. C-suite business travelers who would
routinely fly first class now have a variety of creative
and affordable private jet companies to choose
from.109
“People who fly [private jet] charter way overpay,
and people paying for business class hate it,”
asserts JetSmarter founder Sergey Petrossov.
We're making the journey just as important as
the destination, Petrossov said. And that's what
really has left aviation.110
Rather than owning and
managing a fleet of planes itself, JetSmarter created
a system for accessing private-jet operators’
schedules and uses GPS to track the available
supply of planes. Its app allows members to easily
Four Seasons Private Jet
PhotocourtesyFourSeasonsHotelsandResorts

57
10 | HIGHER FLYERS
On board, some airlines have decided
that less is more when it comes to making
wealthy travelers comfortable – less first
class, that is.
reserve seats, while push notifications encourage
bookings. At $10,000 per year, a JetSmarter
membership gets travelers seats on shared flights
for a fraction of what it costs to charter an entire
plane. It also gives them free access to 40 to 50
weekly scheduled flights between 10 U.S. cities and
within Europe and the Middle East.111
The company
has reported a monthly growth rate of 15%-20%
since its March 2013 launch, according to Business
Travel News.112
Other companies have entered
private aviation with similar strategies and mixed
results. RISE, Surf Air and JetSuiteX offer unlimited
flights throughout California, Texas and Las Vegas
for a monthly fee of up to $2,000 – Surf Air recently
announced all-you-can-fly service throughout
Europe for $3,250 starting in October – while
BlackJet, the charter service backed by Uber
co-founder Garrett Camp, folded this spring.113

58
CONCLUSION
PHOTO
Sea of Cortés, Baja, Mexico

16162-RES-2016 Future of Luxury Travel-Web Pages Final-Revised

16162-RES-2016 Future of Luxury Travel-Web Pages Final-Revised

Recomendados

Recomendados

Más contenido relacionado

La actualidad más candente

La actualidad más candente (16)

Similar a 16162-RES-2016 Future of Luxury Travel-Web Pages Final-Revised

Similar a 16162-RES-2016 Future of Luxury Travel-Web Pages Final-Revised (20)

Más de Amy McDonald

Más de Amy McDonald (7)

16162-RES-2016 Future of Luxury Travel-Web Pages Final-Revised