At GTM Luxury in January we asked luxury travel advisors at a Think Tank session how they navigate the changing needs of their affluent clients. Following are some of the findings from the lively discussion, which was sponsored by AmaWaterways.
- Requests for wellness vacations remain strong. Some clients seek the opportunity to practice some stillness. Sound healing has been very popular as are yoga and Pilates, any of the wellness practices that are commonly found on resorts. People realize it's important to disconnect from their everyday very busy lives to stay in the moment and allow themselves to decompress.
- Approaching clients with a destination-based strategy is growing. Telling the story about a place is tremendously powerful. After that comes the task of picking the right product that fits within the client’s budget but discussing the itinerary first is key.
- Clients want curated authenticity. They want to really immerse themselves in a destination and to see things in a different way. Of course, they want the Michelin-star chef, but they also want to dine with a local family in their home. As a result, luxury travel advisors must marry the two desires to deliver a very high-end experience as well as that very local experience.
- Clients are telling advisors they don’t want to do ordinary things and that means that advisors need to find out from them what ordinary means by doing a deep dive into the psyche of the customer.
- Many couples are now inviting friends along on trips and/or their children and grandchildren. One advisor noted that more than 50 percent of her clients travel with at least one other couple. She suggests asking at the very outset if your clients are traveling with other friends or family so you can help plan accordingly.
- One advisor said she has been forming small groups of widows who used to actively travel with their husbands. She is actively seeking out suppliers who do not charge a single supplement and who are able to make singles feel comfortable in group environments.
- Practicing empathy is helpful when it comes to making a quick getaway work. An advisor had a client who was flying to Paris for the weekend to meet her husband. The advisor booked a transfer from the airport to the hotel but didn’t tell the client that a driver would be waiting for her at the gate, ready to whisk her through a VIP arrival process. The advisor’s thoughtfulness enabled her client to meet her husband with a smile on her face rather than arriving completely stressed out from trying to get through passport control on her own.
- Try to push back on clients in the nicest way if they want to do too much on a trip. It might take a bit for the client to embrace that concept, but they will find that not having to commit to activities every single day of the trip is a godsend. This also opens up the chance for serendipitous experiences, like grabbing a beer with locals, sitting in a café to people watch or having the time to discover a hidden part of the destination they’re in.
- Don’t judge how much you think a client will spend for a luxury trip. One advisor had a friend who only shopped at garage sales but went on to purchase two suites on a Regent cruise.
- One advisor says she always sends out a travel questionnaire that clients have to fill that out before she has a phone consultation with them. She asks questions like, “What stresses you out?” “Where have you stayed before that you enjoyed, or that you didn’t enjoy?” She also recommends getting a budget up front so that she can get appropriate price quotes from suppliers quickly. Another advisor, however, says rather than getting a specific budget from a client she’ll ask which hotel brands brands prefer. “If they say they like Four Seasons, you know they’re comfortable paying $1,000 a night,” she said.