Luxury Escapes says it expects more than 10,000 high-intent travellers at its first large-scale consumer travel event, Luxury Escapes Live, which will bring together upwards of 100 global partners at Melbourne’s Royal Exhibition Building on 16-17 May.
The two-day event, called Luxury Escapes Live, will span aviation, cruising, hospitality, insurance and destination marketing, according to the company. It marks the next phase of Luxury Escapes’ push beyond its digital marketplace roots and into physical, large-scale brand experiences.
The launch follows the company’s omnichannel expansion into brick-and-mortar retail, with stores now operating at Melbourne’s Chadstone and Sydney’s Bondi Junction, with a third to follow imminently.
Luxury Escapes says the event is designed to connect its more than 9 million global members with travel partners in an immersive, bookable setting. Tickets will be free for members.
Who’s on the partner lineup?
Tourism boards, including Hong Kong Tourism Board, Dubai Tourism, Cook Islands Tourism and Tourism Western Australia, will feature alongside aviation and cruise brands such as Cathay Pacific, Celebrity Cruises and Scenic Cruises, according to Luxury Escapes. Luxury hotel groups, including Banyan Group, The Mulia, COMO and Apurva Kempinski Bali, are also listed as participants at Luxury Escapes Live.
Major partners activating throughout the event space include Mastercard, Cathay Pacific, PassportCard, Hong Kong Tourism, LavAzza and Wine Selectors.
The event will also feature a Luxury Escapes VIP Société Lounge, along with chef Miguel Maestre, who will host live cooking demonstrations celebrating international cuisines.
The company says the event will combine live destination activations with bookable packages, event-only offers, celebrity travel tips, giveaways and integrated digital follow-up.
Why launch a live event now?
The move comes as Luxury Escapes reports record growth, claiming revenue is up 50 per cent in recent months across key outbound destinations.
Internal research [editors’ note: sourced before the U.S./Israel war on Iran began] cited by the company indicates that 87 per cent of Australians intend to travel internationally in 2026, with a stronger Australian dollar and lower airfare prices driving demand for packages to Bali, Fiji, Thailand and the Maldives.
Those demand signals broadly align with wider industry data. ABS figures show Australian outbound departures hit 12.6 million trips in 2025, an 8 per cent increase on the prior year, with analysts forecasting continued growth into 2026.
Adam Schwab, Co-Founder and CEO of Luxury Escapes, said the event reflects both consumer appetite and supplier demand for scalable customer acquisition opportunities.
“Australian appetite for travel has never been stronger, and Luxury Escapes Live is designed to put the industry’s best travel experiences in front of that demand. We’re bringing together more than 100 global travel brands and 10,000 high-intent travellers under one roof,” said Schwab.
“This is a natural extension of the ecosystem we’ve built digitally and across our two retail stores, now delivered at scale in a live environment — one that allows our partners to tell their story in a way beyond digital alone. For Luxury Escapes, it reinforces our position as both a distribution partner and a brand platform for the Australian travel market.”
What does this signal for the trade?
Luxury Escapes says Luxury Escapes Live is designed to complement existing trade relationships while driving consumer demand and awareness across the destinations and products on show.
The company has been steadily expanding its trade footprint, launching an Agent Hub in 2024, with Schwab recently outlining the company’s wholesale ambitions at the TravMedia Summit in Sydney.
The model of combining immersive destination showcases with on-the-spot booking capability positions the event somewhere between a trade expo and a consumer travel show, though squarely aimed at Luxury Escapes’ own member base rather than the open market.
For partners, the Luxury Escapes Live pitch is direct access to a large, self-selecting audience of leisure travellers already primed to book.
KARRYON UNPACKS: Luxury Escapes Live is essentially a consumer-facing travel expo built around a single brand’s member base, not the open market. For travel advisors, the key question is whether it drives bookable demand that flows through to the trade via Luxury Escapes’ Agent Hub, or stays within the company’s direct-to-consumer channel. Either way, 100-plus suppliers investing in a two-day activation tells you something about where partner marketing budgets are heading.
