Where the rich go for ultimate holiday experience

15 Dec, 2017 - 00:12 0 Views

eBusiness Weekly

Singapore. — If the vision of white-gloved butlers drawing you a bath — patiently scattering rose petals while you put up your feet in the presidential suite surrounded by mountains of designer shopping bags — is your idea of a luxury holiday, it’s time to change the channel.

“The definition of real luxury has changed,” says Alex Malcolm, founder of Jacada Travel, a UK-based boutique travel operator that is targeting affluent Singaporeans with super exclusive curated travel experiences that run the gamut of driving Lamborghinis across a frozen lake in Finland or enjoying peace and solace in a remote lodge in Madagascar.
According to Credit Suisse Research Institute’s 2017 Global Wealth Report, Singapore’s household wealth grew 3,4 percent to US$1,2 trillion in mid-2017. The average wealth per adult Singaporean remains at a high level of US$268 800, compared to US$115 560 in 2000. With more than 150 000 millionaires in Singapore and growing, there’s plenty of money for travelling, which is why you see more luxury travel operators popping up in Singapore, all of them registering double digit growths in business, with no slowdown in sight.

What’s changing, they say, is how the wealthy — or simply high-earning professionals — are travelling now.

“More people are looking for an experience that, whilst still having business class flights and 5-star hotels, takes them out of their comfort zone to experience something they never thought they would do,” says Malcolm.

While he started in the UK in 2008 and now has offices in London, Cape Town and Santiago, it is his Hong Kong office which opened three years ago that is seeing the most growth as the Asian market booms.

In Singapore recently to woo potential clients, he says “we’ve seen growth here of around 20 per cent and we’re expecting it to grow closer to 40 per cent in the coming year.” Currently the Hong Kong market is still twice as large as Singapore, but Malcolm feels it’s a question of engaging the market, which could mean opening an office here in the near future.

Jacada is just one of several luxury travel operators that have come to tap the Asian market. And it comes on the heels of Scott Dunn, one of the largest bespoke agencies in the world, which opened an office in Singapore last year to cope with the demand.
“Scott Dunn has been in operation in the U.K. for over 30 years, and whilst we have always had a proportion of international guests, it wasn’t until 2015 that we saw such a significant number of enquiries coming from Asia,” says Victoria Hogg, its Asia Pacific Sales and Service Manager.

“Without an office in the region, it made it extremely difficult to provide the kind of service we pride ourselves on, with the eight hour time difference.”

The Singapore office services the entire Asian region, but Singapore remains its biggest market, followed by Hong Kong and Australia. “Our guests are primarily high net worth individuals and the majority of our bookings are for families (a mixture of expats and local Singaporeans). In terms of adventurous couples, they want to get off the beaten track, be it glamping under the stars in Oman or embarking on a dolomite ski safari.

We’ve also seen families with older children getting more adventurous, with itineraries such as learning to surf at Nihi in Sumba or an epic road trip along California’s coastline.”
Call it ‘achievement-based travel’ or ‘transformative’ travel, all travel operators have noticed one major trend — “where travellers venture into new pastures to learn from cultures and places that differ from their own”, says Nico Heath, co-founder and director of Lightfoot Travel, one of the earliest entrants into the Singapore luxury travel market.

Launched in Singapore in 2009, “We’ve grown 30 per cent year on year,” says Heath. “We were founded in Singapore, it’s where our roots are, and 55 per cent of our business still comes from Singapore in comparison to our other offices in Dubai and Hong Kong. We can organise up to 70 tailor-made itineraries a month, ranging from a three-week long trip around the Antarctic, a family safari in South Africa, or a week’s stay in Mongolia.”

With an increasing appetite for adventure, “destinations such as Ethiopia and Iran are becoming increasingly popular,” says Heath.

“It’s also a well-known fact that Singaporeans are foodies, and this doesn’t stop when they travel. Many guests choose a destination for its culinary experiences, such as cooking classes in Sri Lanka or the infamous sushi of Tokyo. We also find that Singaporeans prioritise privacy and exclusivity, with private villas and yachts becoming increasingly popular, especially for multi-generational family holidays.”

Simplicity is also another pursuit for travellers suffering from information overload. “Curated, artisanal and authentic experiences still matter, but a much bigger trend will be travelling for pure calm, ease and total decompression,” says Heath.

Another luxury operator to open an office in Singapore is A2A Safaris/A2A Journeys, which was started by African safari enthusiasts Jose Cortes and Victor Dizon in Hong Kong in 2002. It also has offices in Manila and New York, with representatives around the world.
Until 2014, they specialised only on curating bespoke safari holidays to Africa. But they’ve since moved into current hot destinations of Latin America and Antarctica, sending “more than twice as many Singaporeans to Argentina and Chile last year,” says Dizon. “The figures are even higher for Antarctica which has seen a real spark in interest from Singapore and our Asian clients across the board.”

In the past five years, A2A has seen their Singapore business grow three-fold, and it is now about 65 percent the size of its Hong Kong customer base, which is its biggest market. “And it’s fast catching up,” he adds.

Do you really need to be a millionaire in order to afford such services? It would help, but it’s not entirely necessary. “Our customers usually spend an average of US$9 000 (excluding airfare to Africa or Latin America) for a period of one-and-a-half to two weeks,” says Dizon. At Jacada Travel, shorter trips within Asia can come to just US$2000 to US$3 000, says Malcolm, although the average expenditure is around US$8 000 to US$9 000, excluding flights.

“The more expensive trips would be closer to US$40 000 a person, and if we need to charter planes or boats, then it goes up to US$60 000.” — ThePeak.

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