The Times Luxx, Access All Areas
15 Nov 2008
A new breed of super-travel agent is creating truly tailor-made escapes for the high-end traveller, with genuinely exclusive accommodation and incomparable experiences.
When a hotel chain employs "experience managers", when travel directors are employed for their society connections, and when upmarket agents won't reveal details about their top secret hideaways, because "they are just that, secret, for our private clients and friends only", you know you're in a different travel league: the league of the super-traveller.
Once, holidays were seen as an annual get-away-from-it-all treat. In the world of the super-traveller, they've become something else. They're taken a few times a year (a family beach break followed by a safari, ski week and city break). They're seen as essential breaks, space to decompress from the stresses of the urban hothouse. They're networking opportunities. And they're often time for a bit of one-upmanship - as Black Tomato co-founder Tom Marchant puts it, "a time to have experiences that will make people's jaws drop at drinks parties".
In spite of the global downturn, there does still seem to be a reasonably stable number of "ultra-high net worth individuals" for whom blowing £250,000 annually on holidays - or buying planes and boats on which to enjoy them - is still not a dream, but a reality.
In a world where names on the Forbes 400 Rich List are still billionaires, rather than millionaires, the market for private jets has never been healthier, with companies such as Gulfstream achieving 17 per cent more orders for business jets in the first quarter of 2008. And private membership organisations such as Earth and Based On A True Story - both of which handpick their 150 or so clients, and tailor-make every experience those members have on a trip - say they are having to turn away clients, no matter how rich, to keep their membership as they intended: small and exclusive.
What sets the members of these super-travel clubs apart, apparently, is their desire for rarity and enjoyment, rather than ostentation. Although a few clients such as the Saudi Royal family - whose travel arrangements are made by Exosphere in London - still require "the presidential suites in the best hotels to make them feel they are at the very top", according to director Sophie Leyton, most wealthy travellers want something very different.
They look for ?privacy and escapism, things that make you feel fantastic", says Kuoni's 2008 World Class Report. They ask for "space - whether that's in their jets or their suites", says Robin Fawcett, whose company Jeffersons only organises private-jet holidays. And more than anything, writes Robert Frank, author of Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich, they want "to set themselves apart from the merely affluent. You want things no one else can afford or experience. The challenge is always to stay ahead."
While time is often travellers- most precious commodity - so getting them to destinations quickly and comfortably is important - it's often the little things that matter more, says Penny Henson of Quintessentially, which for membership fees from £5,000 to £24,000 will organise details right down to the cigar humidor and personal driver. The exact details depend on the clients.
The 100 or so people who belong to Bellini Travel, says managing director Emily FitzRoy, probably place the highest value on meeting interesting, connected people and seeing sights privately, rather than with the crowds. Which is why her bespoke trips to Italy might take in a private dinner with a Principessa in her canal-side palace, an after-hours tour with a priest through private areas of the Vatican, or a lunch on board the last remaining sail-powered fishing boat in Venice.
"Rarity is the ultimate goal," says Tom Marchant of Black Tomato, who has arranged helicopter camping trips to Australia's isolated Haggerstone Island, as well as parties on the remote Angra dos Reis islands in Brazil. "For our clients it is something more bespoke than you can imagine, that has almost never been done before." Like what? "One recent client from Canada wanted to do his own seven wonders of the world in two weeks. So we took him scuba diving between tectonic plates in Iceland; shark diving with some of South Africa's top marine biologists; jetted him privately to India to get him into the Taj Mahal after hours; flew him to Beijing and into the Emperor's quarters (which is very difficult to arrange); and then took him to Hiroshima, where we had arranged a surprise meeting with an author of a book he had raved about."
The super-agents aim to provide the ideal experience without the client noticing the process. Fox, for instance, arranged for a treehouse to be built in a Kenyan reserve, for exclusive wildlife-watching, and on another trip to Jordan organised out-of-hours access to Petra, where the client enjoyed dinner in the light of 1,000 candles.
Exosphere's Sophie Denton sorted breakfast at an Egyptian temple at dawn, for a romantic proposal. Bellini's Emily FitzRoy flew in a La Scala soprano to sing at a dinner in an Italian palace. Paddy Singh of Hindoostan Tours escorted guests to a maharajah's wedding. Sebastian Lee from Latitude International, which arranges bespoke trips within the UK, set up a dinner with the Crown Jewellers in the Tower of London, and a 50th birthday golf trip to Scotland - culminating in a round at St Andrews with his favourite golfer, who'd won the Open there.
The rarity factor applies to accommodation too. Even Nat Rothschild's villa in Corfu can be rented if you know the right people - such as Cedric Reversade, who lets a collection of European homes to private clients, including the most beautiful house ever built on Lake Como. "It is like a fairytale palace, and very rarely let out," he says. Price, most exclusive operators say, isn't the issue. "Sure, clients want value," says Marchant. "But the sky's the limit if they trust you."
Besides, says Niel Fox, founder of Based On A True Story, who says he can do "almost anything, almost anywhere", when his 20 or so £200,000-a-year clients entrust their holidays to him, they also entrust their lives. "Most of our clients enjoy going to very different, sometimes far-flung places, so everything has to be watertight in terms of arrangements, staff, expeditions, bureaucracy, security," he says. Which is why often he will do a full reconnaissance trip himself beforehand, ensuring every detail is covered.
"Wealthy people aren't naive. They have experienced a lot, so what you deliver has to live up to expectations. They don't want to pay €10,000 [£8,000] for a palatial suite, for instance, and then find they are going to be charged an extra €10 [£8] for a bottle of water. That's a rip-off. But they will pay for truly amazing things - like to see frescos in a private palace, because, unless you know the owners, no one else can do that. Their aim often is to get under the skin of a place. And that's really what we're there to help them do."
Black Tomato: 020 7610 9008, www.blacktomato.co.uk
