How the ultra-rich travel

Inside the race to satisfy travellers for whom exclusivity is everything and money is no object

- SARAH LYALL

TODAY'S SUPER-RICH travellers want luxury. They want personalised attention. They want non-cookie-cutter hotels with impeccable service and private villas with personal butlers. They want to never, ever, have to wait, stand in line or be herded around with other people.

Most of all, said Carlo Nocella, head of global sales at Vavius Club, the loyalty programme for a destination management company in Italy, they want "to feel that they have something that other people cannot achieve." What that looks like is the preoccupation of an ever expanding, ever more elaborate travel infrastructure — travel advisers, concierge services and members' clubs — catering to the extravagant needs and money is no object whims of ultrahigh-net-worth clients.

Roughly defined as people who have investable assets of at least $30 million and are prepared to pay, say, thousands of dollars a night for a hotel room or tens of thousands of dollars for a villa, these clients are in turn fuelling an arms race in the world of high-end leisure. The goal is to offer the most fabulous, the most opulent, the most individualised and the most singular properties, experiences and services imaginable. For Nocella, whose company, Virtuous Travel & Concierge, works with travel advisers to plan and execute trips for high-end clients, that means that "we don't just sell vacations," he said. "We provide experiences that match with the client's wildest demands and expectations."

Jack Ezon, the founder and managing director of Embark Beyond, a New York-based "luxury travel advisory," said that to high-end clients, luxury is as much about emotions as it is about a specific tangible thing. "You want to feel more special than anyone else," he said.

Travel's booming high end