Business is good for Travel Leaders Group's luxury agents,
with 64% saying bookings are higher now versus this time last year.
Twenty-nine percent of respondents reported luxury bookings are
even, and 7% said bookings are lower.
Nine percent said luxury bookings have increased more than
50%, 21% said they were higher by 21-50%, 20% said bookings were higher by
11-20%, and 13% said they were higher by 0-10%.
Conversely, 5% reported bookings were down 0-20%, 2%
reported bookings lower than 21-50% and 1% reported bookings lower by more than
50%.
"Given the strong U.S. economy, it is no surprise that
our agents are seeing a higher level of luxury travel bookings compared to last
year," Travel Leaders Group CEO Ninan Chacko said in a statement. "Some
people are scaling up their vacations to include high-end accommodations and
exclusive experiences and others are simply taking more trips because of their confidence
in the economy."
The top five destinations are Italy, European river cruises,
Mediterranean cruises, the United States and Ireland.
The findings were part of Travel Leaders Group's 2017 Fall Travel
Trends Survey, which received responses from 1,107 agents from its flagship
Travel Leaders brand as well as from Cruise Specialists, Nexion, Protravel
International, Travel Leaders Corporate and Tzell Travel Group.