LAS VEGAS -- Shorter booking windows? Slow demand for the U.S.? Dampened bookings? Not for Virtuoso agencies.
At Virtuoso Travel Week, the consortium presented data that in some instances go against general consumer travel trends. For example, Virtuoso advisors are not reporting shortened booking windows. According to its database of leisure bookings, the 2025 booking window is 122 days, exactly the same as 2024.
David Kolner, Virtuoso's executive vice president, said the booking window has remained stable because many luxury travelers are still booking well ahead of departure to secure the accommodations they want. Those trips are balancing out the last-minute bookings that have become a trend this summer.
"There are only so many safari lodges," he said. "There are only so many presidential suites on the ship. If you want to book those things, they're the things that sell out the fastest."
The U.S. is still the top destination for Virtuoso advisors, even for Canadians. And there are no travel jitters. Leisure sales for the first half of 2025 are up 12% over 2024. That does jibe with what hotel companies reported in their second-quarter earnings. Their luxury brands continued to thrive. And it jibes with the high demand that cruise companies reported in Q2.
Virtuoso data reflect the different habits of the luxury traveler, Virtuoso executives said. Quite simply, luxury travelers are insulated from market swings, currency fluctuations and political rhetoric, and they're still planning to travel regardless.
"I think, in general, high net worth and ultra-high net worth clients know what they want to do, and they're going to do it no matter what," said Kolner.
Kerry Dyer, chief development officer at Brownell Travel, said there was a pause in March but that clients had resumed booking by May.
"We didn't have any cancellations," Dyer said, "we just had a pause."
And, she said that 2026 bookings are "awesome."
For Virtuoso advisors, hotel bookings are particularly strong. From January to June, year-over-year sales were up 25.5%, outpacing a nearly 10% growth in average daily rate. Cruise sales were up 9.3% and tours up 2.9%. For the second half of the year, sales are up 33.1% for hotels, 15.9% for cruise and 13.6% for tours.
Travelers are taking slightly shorter trips. Virtuoso said that average trip length in the first half of 2025 declined slightly, from 8.1 days to 7.8 days.