Luxperience 2024 kicked off this week in Sydney with a thought leaders forum and an awards announcement event before attendees doubled-down for a three-day roster of business appointments and events. Karryon Luxury reports.
This year’s event saw a return of the popular Luxperience Thought Leaders Forum. The session began with a Welcome to Country musical performance by Aboriginal vocal performance and music group, Kari Singers.
Lynn Ormiston, Luxperience Event Director then took to the stage to welcome guests.
“We’ve seen an incredible uptake since our 2023 event… and this year have 122 suppliers and 190 elite travel advisors in attendance. We continue to attract top tier partners and high calibre travel advisors,” said Ormiston.
She introduced the emcee and host of the forum, Quentin Long, co-Founder of Australian Traveller Media.
Travel trends and forecasts
Adele Labine-Romain, Head of Travel & Tourism at Roy Morgan delivered the keynote presentation, focusing on the key factors currently driving changes in the industry.
Drawing on data from various sources throughout her presentation, it was revealed that the top performing region in the world was the Middle East.
“They are getting more visitors than ever before. Europe and the US are feeling almost level set to 2019. But in Asia Pacific, we’re still sitting at only 82 per cent recovery,” she said.
In Australia, international arrivals have pushed past the 80 per cent plateau of the second half of 2023, according to Australian Bureau Statistics data; and Chinese arrivals have been gaining ground, with a two thirds recovery in the September 2024 quarter.
Labine-Romain said that while it may feel like everyone is going away, we’re not.
“On a per capita basis, we’re travelling outbound less,” she said.
Of the overseas destinations faring best, she said travel to Japan is the standout – with travel to India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Fiji also noticeably higher.
“There is definitely an aviation capacity story that underpins where Australians go,” she said.
“Australians are a nation of travellers, travelling twice as much as Americans and one and a half times as much as New Zealanders do,” she said.
In inviting the audience to challenge perceptions and stereotypes about the luxury traveller, she drew from the McKinsey, ‘Updating Perceptions About Today’s Luxury Traveller’, May 2024 survey report of more than 5,000 luxury travellers which concluded these misconceptions:
- All luxury travellers are very wealthy’ (one third are travellers with a net worth between $100k and $1m who splurge on special occasions etc)
- ‘Luxury travellers all crave exotic experiences’ (they still also want beach vacations and relaxing holidays too!)
- ‘Luxury travellers are old’ (80 per cent of the luxury leisure market is below 60 years)
- ‘Luxury travellers don’t care about loyalty programs’ (68 per cent say programs are important)
- ‘The traditional agent is dead’ (“trust is very important and they want support making sure they get it right”).
In good news for advisors, data in Tourism Research Australia, International Visitor Survey, year ending June 2024 as reported in Tourism Australia’s Future of Distribution report, Nov 2024 showed that 60 per cent of travellers will work with an advisor when planning higher spend trips.
“Travel demand is resilient. Domestic and overseas travel co-exists (people are not choosing one or the other),” she said.
When it comes to business travel, she said Australians just aren’t travelling overseas in the way they once did.
“We’re almost reshaping the corporate travel sector. There’s less reasons to fly somewhere for a day; but businesses will double down more for events and conference travel,” she said.
Redefining luxury: sustainability and the next generation of elite travellers
The first of two panel sessions was focused on the topic of sustainable travel.
The panel included Mike Harlow, General Manager, Scott Dunn; Alison Greer, Founder, GoKinda; Mat Woods, Chief Executive, Destination Queenstown; Libby Escolme, Director of Marketing, 1 Hotels & Resorts; and Rosanna Iacono, Co-Founder, The Growth Activist.
Mat Woods discussed Queenstown’s Regenerative Tourism Plan.
“In tourism and the visitor economy, the word regenerative tourism is about looking at the four wellbeing pillars. We have to be looking after the region economically, number one… we have to be economically sustainable. Because if we’re not, we can’t actually deliver on the wellbeing pillars. The others are around being social and cultural, and then environmental… and ensuring that our visitors who come to Queenstown give back more than they take across those four wellbeing pillars,” said Woods.
He also spoke of Queenstown’s “incredibly ambitious” plan to be carbon zero by 2030 goal.
“We only have 2,233 days as of today to do it. I wake up every morning and ask myself what have we done today,” he said.
Libby Escolme, Director of Marketing at 1 Hotels & Homes Melbourne spoke about the 1 Hotels ethos of being a mission-driven hotel brand and a platform for change. The group’s Melbourne property will open mid 2025 on the Yarra River and is “led by nature,” she said.
ESG specialist Rosanna Iacono, Co-Founder, The Growth Activist predicted that in three to five years’ time, sustainability will be part of everyone’s job description.
“We’re going towards truly momentous change, and what’s really driving that change and why is sustainability moving from a moral question to a business imperative,” she asked.
She said it’s not consumers putting pressure on businesses… but capital markets are driving the push for sustainability.
“The big topics are going to be decarbonisation…our laws come into place from 1 January, 2025. It impacts really large businesses to begin with but will gradually trickle down to medium-sized entities as well,” said Iacono.
Large organisations will need to measure their carbon and set targets for minimising their impact, as well as to disclose it all publicly.
“There’s a massive administrative burden that comes with doing this. But at a certain point, they’re going to say, ‘wow, we’ve spent all of this money – how do we turn this into an investment?’ And the way they’re going to do it is through storytelling. They’re going to take that story and what they’ve been doing and take it out to all of their stakeholders, and that includes consumers. What you’re going to see from the really large organisations in your industry is they’re going to start really telling those stories in a much more deliberate and in-your-face way than ever before,” she said.
As a result, small and medium sized businesses will be under pressure to be competitive and to step up and to do more from a sustainability standpoint.
“If you’re doing this, then how can you take your effort and turn it into really powerful narratives that you can take to market, so that you’re really balancing the commercial with the things that you have to do from a sustainability standpoint,” said Iacono.
She said the other consideration small and medium businesses should keep in mind is that if they are in the supply chain of a large reporting entity, they are going to start being asked for data, and there will be an expectation on those businesses to be decarbonised as much as possible.
The topics of greenwashing and also greenhushing were discussed, as was the need for a universal framework for eco certifications.
Travel Extremes: The next frontier of luxury adventures
Panel members of this session were Deb Fox, Managing Director, Abercrombie & Kent; Megan Bardlsey, Business Development Manager, Australasia, Golden Eagle Trains; Aaron Russ, Commercial Director & Expeditions Leader, Heritage Expeditions; Edyta Teper, VP, Global Sales & Trade, Space Perspective; and Andrew Cavallaro, Co-Founder and Director, Helm.
“We are seeing millennials come through and travelling in the luxury space,” said Deb Fox.
“They are borrowing money to be able to have these holidays even if they can’t afford it, so we’re seeing a new segment come through,” she said.
A&K is going through a brand evolution, on the verge of relaunching A&K.
“We are doing it for a very important reason: we are seeing the luxury customer evolve rapidly globally, and frontier, slow travel, cool travel, is leading the way,” said Fox.
Fox shared that A&K is looking to open several DMCs over the next 12 months in some of the most remote and emerging destinations in the world.
Aaron Russ from Heritage Expeditions said their customers increasingly desire detailed itineraries.
“What we’re seeing with Heritage, is the more in depth itineraries that don’t breeze over areas, that actually take the time to stop and see and explore, are the ones which are attracting a group of travellers that I consider really at the frontier of travel. They don’t want to just quickly move through and tick the box. They want to actually experience and discover what the destination has to offer.. And above all else, they have the means, but time is the greatest of luxuries,” he said
Edyta Teper from Space Perspective shared that space travel is the fastest growing industry.
“It’s going to be a $28b industry by 2030,” she said.
Meanwhile, Megan Bardsley said Golden Eagle Luxury Trains will be launching itineraries in new destinations in the 2025 and 2026.
Other events
Luxperience saw three full days of appointments, from 8am to 6pm, between suppliers and luxury advisors.
As the first session of appointments kicked off, Karryon Luxury attended a media briefing to be updated on the latest brand developments from 1 Hotels & Homes; Golden Eagle Luxury Trains, Heritance Hotels, The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, Tourism Western Australia, Aurora Expeditions, Over the Top Helicopters, Uga, Ipsum Skincare and the Mondrian Gold Coast.
The Mondrian Gold Coast team, after presenting about the new hotel set to open in Burleigh Heads in mid-2025, then took a group of media for a sailing of Sydney harbour onboard Cruise Sydney by Journey Beyond Group. Meanwhile, other suppliers hosted a number of travel advisors on the same cruise.
Karryon Luxury joined Brad Mercer, General Manager; Megan Pechey, Director of Sales; and Kelly Brady, Director of Revenue on the cruise which included a three-course meal and beverages as we ventured under the Sydney Harbour Bridge and past the Sydney Opera House.
In the evening, we headed along to a Scott Dunn dinner at 12-Micron in Barrangaroo where Mike Harlow, General Manager of Scott Dunn, out from the Singapore office and Ellen Fraser, Scott Dunn Asia specialist from the London office joined Danielle Galloway, Global Managing Director – Luxury & Independent, FCTG; Anna Burgdorf, Global Brand & Marketing Director, LTC; Rachel Kingswell, General Manager, Travel Associates; Nikki Glading, General Manager Sales & Operations, LTC; Shannon Fogarty, General Manager Luxury Product, LTC and Adam Townson, Head of Product, Travel Associates – along with a number of luxury travel advisors.
Mike Harlow discussed the Scott Dunn brand and its growth, highlighting the importance of curated travel experiences. He shared key highlights and trends they are seeing in the business which included an increase in China departures, a focus on Northern Scandinavia, and emerging destinations like Eastern Africa and Morocco. He also spoke about a new program, ‘Journeys by Land and Sea’ to capitalise on the booming cruise market, working with Ponant, Explora Journeys and Silversea.
“We’re really excited to be out here in Australia. Since the business soiree in May this year, we’ve really started to build some connections with the business leaders that are here and we thought there’s a huge opportunity in our Asia program, and being able to support you all with delving further into the world of luxury travel.
“We want to be able to give you that expert knowledge within our sector. We want to give you that one point of contact so you can deliver that whole travel experience, end-to-end for your clients. Over the past 40 years, we’ve built up a really good commercial buying platform, which we want to share with your clients and pass on that commercial opportunity,” said Harlow.
Luxperience concludes today in Sydney.
