A little bit of luxury and time out can be the difference between a good trip and one to write home about.
I’m sitting in Sydney having completed the second roomsXML’s collaboration with G Adventures on the Galapagos Islands. We wander around a city using the sights and sounds and the aquarium as a backdrop to talk about the G adventures Marine product range and the hotels that roomsXML provides.
Listening to Omar from Ecuador talk about the Galapagos Islands is part lesson, part history, part informative but all passion. He has compelling narrative on everything from the animals to what to expect. Along with a few photographs and brochures it really is a tempting travel proposition.
Like many trips to exotic and amazing places, it’s about a truly engaging travel experience that blows the travellers mind and takes them out of their comfort zone. But what does this have to do with luxury?
Let me tell you.
The intense experience
I don’t know much about the Galapagos but I do know a lot about travelling in India and a bit about Cambodia where G adventures have River cruises. According to Omar, “the weather is 32°” this time of year in the Galapagos.
Think about the experience of these destinations. Travellers have probably gone halfway around the world, it can be pretty hot, time zone, diet and cultural adjustments. Then on the day of travel is an early start, often a long drive, a transfer to get the destination, a fair bit of walking, sweat and dirt and sights and sounds and the mind is blown.
It is exciting but exhausting.
The club sandwich effect
Now Diane Craig from TravelManagers may have called me a bit of a woos but sometimes when I travel in India, even just for work, I need to shut it all out, buy a club sandwich, a cold beer, and sit in my room watching a net cast of an AFL football match so I can process it. I need sanctuary to make sense of it all. After five or six days with four or five more to go I just want some of my own normality.
The sanctuary is part of the design
My mum, one of the most intrepid people I know, took on the challenge of doing up a hotel in Siem Reap. One of the elements in the design for Santa Clara and in fact one of its success factors was to provide travellers with the sanctuary away from the intensity of the experience of Siem Reap. This time of year they are in drought and it’s about 42°.
Lynn says: “after a day of visiting temples and markets, travellers are just exhausted. They arrive back at the hotel exhilarated but tired, sweaty and often dirty. They go to their room, shower, immerse themselves in the pool and come out a new person and talk about what they have just shared”.
“It’s really important they have time to revitalise and refresh for the next day. It’s our job to provide that service whether it be a comfortable bed, nourishing food or cocktails to lubricate a few laughs.”
The time away builds the story
We need time to process intense experiences. These end of day ‘debriefs’ are where travellers sit around, share their stories and perspectives and begin to build the dialogue of the trip they are having. This dialogue becomes the story that they take home and share with their friends and families.
Without the time to process, you risk losing the experience. For example, have you ever been on a famil where you are expected to visit 12 hotels in a day? Can you remember anything beyond the third one?
By giving your travellers an injection of luxury you give them a chance to rest, recover, make sense of it all, embed the memory and come home to not only share the experience but to sell the holiday and your services as a travel agent, to the next person.
Make it all non-stop and the story may never develop.