Virtuoso Travel Week highlights the main trends in luxury travel

The 34th annual Virtuoso Travel Week was held August 13-19 at Bellagio Resort & Casino, ARIA Resort & Casino and Vadara Hotel & Spa.

The luxury travel industry’s “Fashion Week” brings together 5,000 industry professionals from 100 countries, with 4,300 of those 5,000 attending in person.

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More than 180,000 one-on-one communication appointments took place between consultants and travel companies, helping to fuel the great human connection that is the travel industry.

Other highlights include a panel discussion under One Sky on sustainability, the new Travel Tech Summit and globetrotting sessions that allow for a more in-depth look at brands across categories such as cruising, adventure, wellness and more.

“We believe that the strength of the relationship between our advisors and all of these amazing suppliers around the world directly affects the traveler’s journey, so the better the relationship, the better the journey,” said Matthew Upchurch, Chairman and CEO. Virtuoso told TravelPulse.

Mr Fahd Hamidadin, CEO of the Saudi Tourism Authority, called the event “encouraging”.

“There were a lot of things I didn’t expect, including the luxury of the development. [Also] The virtuoso network – amazing performance. The network’s announcements and new beginnings and the commitment from the business to enhance the revenge journey they are witnessing have been very encouraging. I came here thinking about recovery, now I’m thinking about big growth.”

Among these initiatives and announcements are the launch of HospitalMe training, which allows diversity and inclusion training for members, redesigning email marketing campaigns to use consultants, a renewed partnership with Virgin Galactic, and a first-ever global consumer face-to-face. Campaign for Virtuoso (exact launch date to be announced later).

Lindsay Epperly, founder and CEO of Jetset World Travel, noted how valuable it is to be able to reconnect with the industry.

“Virtuoso Travel Week is a very important event for me and my entire team,” said Epperly. “First of all it’s a great team building opportunity, we love coming out here and meeting our team. And then meeting and reconnecting with our favorite vendors, especially with what this industry has gone through now, I think it’s really important to bring everything in person.

To showcase the latest trends in luxury travel, Virtuoso, which generates an average of $25-30 billion in annual sales, taps into an extensive network of 20,000 travel advisors from around the world – all of whom offer rich and high-value advice. Customers – as well as their preferred connections to more than 2,200 of the world’s best hotels and resorts, cruise lines, airlines, tour operators and top global destinations.

Luxury market travel recovery

Outbound leisure travel sales grew strongly for Virtuoso. The US is already playing on 2019 numbers for 2022 at 122 per cent, Australia at 113 per cent, Canada at 80 per cent. “Globally, we’re up 102 percent from January to July in 2019,” Virtuoso said.

76 percent of travelers have accepted the “new normal” and only 12 percent say there is still too much uncertainty and volatility.

Will this strong recovery continue?

“I think maybe this will reduce the immediate demand, but if you want to travel the travel lifestyle and the concept that we all have to live one life as we’ve learned from the pandemic, now is the time.” To take it – I think that’s going to happen and I think that’s going to be generational,” said Beth Washington, founder of Getaway Guild.
“I think it’s well-documented, as you know, especially with the millennial generation and the younger generation, and travel is an important part of their lifestyle. It’s something they don’t want to give up, it’s something they’re willing to spend money on before spending money on other luxury items or other lifestyle purchases, so I definitely think the high demand for travel is typical.

20 percent of millionaire households in the United States are millennials. People who can afford to travel are willing to pay this expense.

Of all Virtuoso travelers who responded to the survey, 74 percent said that creating a travel experience is more important than their expectations. According to Virtuoso data, travelers plan to spend 34% more per person than last year’s $20,700 to $27,800 next year.

2023 “is a record breaker,” said David Koelner, senior vice president of strategy at Virtuoso. Travel sales for Virtuoso in 2023 are 47 percent higher than in 2019.

Globally, the travel industry is not expected to fully recover until 2024, but in key markets, luxury travel continues to push forward in significant numbers.

What’s hot now.

Across all countries, hotel and on-site entertainment bookings are 157 percent of 2019 levels.

Traveling with a spouse/adult is the most popular type of travel, followed by friends in second place and family trips with children under 18 in third place.

“What’s emerging for our agency in luxury travel is probably what we’ll see across the board this summer, like in Europe. [and] We typically handle a lot of Caribbean destinations for our agency, but we only handle that type of travel,” Epperly said. We’re seeing our travelers slow down a bit compared to 2019, in terms of how fast they’re traveling – they’re still very American travelers and ‘go go’ is the norm, but we are. So does multi-gene viewing. I think families really want to get together and be together, that’s a big trend.

Solo travel is also on the rise, with the highest level of interest coming from the 65+ age group. 78 percent of travelers say they are ready to travel now. For 87 percent of those asked, the dollar’s parity with the euro plays a role, while only 35 percent say air travel complications this summer have caused them to cancel or postpone plans.

Virtuoso also revealed where their travelers go the most. The top summer destinations are America first, Italy second, France third, Canada fourth and Greece fifth. The United Kingdom, Spain, Mexico, Ireland and Switzerland are ranked 10th.

Looking ahead to the fall and holiday seasons

Booking trends in July show a strong fall season with volumes above 2019 levels, Virtuoso said.

Hotel bookings for fall and holiday travel (September 1 to January 15) this year through July are up 173 percent from the same point in 2019.

The US, Italy, France, Mexico and Canada are among the top international destinations from September-December 2022.

This holiday season, 71 percent of Virtuoso travelers will travel on vacation, and 21 percent will travel to see family and friends.

Islands and beaches top travelers’ lists for vacation travel, followed by health-related trips, ocean cruises and cities outside the U.S. Among those surveyed, 62 percent travel to multiple destinations, while 38 percent say they travel to a single destination. Also, wellness-focused travel was the only category to grow year over year from 13 percent in 2021 to 24 percent in 2022.

“If you haven’t planned, you better plan now,” Upchurch said. “It’s almost too late. I mean, that’s one of my main messages. [to] Plan ahead. Many of our best travelers have just started collecting, which is thinking ahead. Our more sophisticated travelers are actually thinking about a big historical trip, two to three years ago or more. We’re finding that travelers with more careful planning actually have a better overall experience and are more likely to take advantage of last-minute items because of the big plan.

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