Tour agencies reinvent themselves as luxury, bespoke requests rise
Aurora borealis in Iceland. ‘The appetite is growing for unusual holidays with that dinner party boastability factor,’ said Mr Nico Heath of Lightfoot Travel. Photo: Dynasty Travel
SINGAPORE — Paragliding in from a mountain top to a luxury Middle Eastern hotel. Grizzly bear watching in Alaska. Swimming with whale sharks in Mexico. Private dining at the world famous Angkor Wat temple. Trekking the Sahara atop a camel.
Of late, travel agencies calling themselves “bespoke travel specialists” or “luxury tour designers” have sprouted up with increasing frequency, offering cherry-picked holiday ideas and customised itineraries for a discerning and growing wealthy class of travellers.
Traditional travel agents, meanwhile, are also reinventing themselves and offering new portfolios of products and brands, seeking to avoid becoming irrelevant amid greater competition from online travel agencies (OTAs).
“Travel agencies in Singapore are still finding their way around this disruptive environment with technology coming in so strongly. It is a small market driven more by demand pull rather than supply push. Traditional travel agents are trying to find a niche in demand creation, whether it is through technology or bespoke product development,” said Mr Robin Yap, Asia president at The Travel Corporation (TTC) — the parent company of tour brands including Trafalgar, Insight Vacations and Lion World Travel.
TTC has beefed up its premium tours portfolio for next year to offer a suite of private VIP experiences and escorted journeys under its premium brand Luxury Gold.
Similarly at Dynasty Travel, one of Singapore’s leading tour agencies, the company will soon be launching a much larger portfolio of exotic and high-end destinations for next year.
“Luxury travel is growing much faster than the mass market, where people are spoilt for choice,” said Ms Alicia Seah, director of marketing and communications at Dynasty Travel.
She added that Dynasty Travel’s premium business segment is growing about 8 per cent annually against a stagnating mass market.
The beyond-the-ordinary bucket list for travellers has expanded amid demand from the region’s growing wealthy class for more customised, adventurous and rich travel experiences.
According to a recent wealth report by the Credit Suisse Research Institute, Singapore has about 150,000 millionaires, up 2 per cent from last year, with a total of US$541 billion (S$773 billion) in wealth. The number of ultra-high net worth individuals here grew even faster, by 14.2 per cent to 885. By 2021, the number of millionaires is forecast to grow 4.2 per cent per annum to 185,000, said the report.
And in good news for the tourism industry, travel made up 30 per cent of overall spending by Singaporean millionaires in the past 12 months, according to the 2016-2017 Affluent Asian Millionaire report by Agility Research.
“The growth of luxury travel goes hand in hand with the growth of wealth in Asia, as well as the traction in the market for sophisticated travellers wanting to have more unique experiences. The appetite is growing for unusual holidays with that dinner party ‘boastability’ factor ... The emphasis is on kudos of in-the-know experiences — from the top-pick restaurants for ultimate foodies to the best guides,” said Mr Nico Heath, Singapore director at Lightfoot Travel.
The bespoke travel itineraries, said industry players, are curated by a team of travel specialists with in-country experience powered by a global network acquired over decades of travel industry experience. Together with “travelling concierges” around the world, tour companies craft the itineraries carefully to ensure their time-poor clients — largely comprising CEOs, entrepreneurs or even busy mothers — relax and soak in exclusive VIP experiences.
“The early 40s is when people really start being able to take a break from their careers and travel in a truly luxurious manner — longer trips and more luxurious accommodations as well as seeking out more ‘meaning’ from their trips as opposed to a quick weekend getaway,” said Ms Hajar Ali, founder of Urbane Nomads.
“This is an entirely different approach to contacting hotels directly, where recommendations are limited and the efficiency of clients’ itineraries are compromised in favour of available dates, especially in peak season. We analyse itineraries to ensure what is most comfortable and advantageous for our clients — no compromises.”
