For today’s ultra-wealthy, travel is more than just a trip; it’s an immersive world of unparalleled luxury and hyper-personalized service. They seek out unique hotels with flawless service, private villas staffed with personal butlers, and experiences that ensure they never face the mundane realities of waiting in lines or sharing space with crowds.
As Carlo Nocella, head of global sales at Vavius Club, a premier loyalty program for a leading Italian destination management company, puts it, these discerning travelers primarily desire “to feel that they have something that other people cannot achieve.”
This quest for ultimate exclusivity has ignited an escalating “arms race” within the high-end travel industry. Travel advisors, elite concierge services, and exclusive members’ clubs are constantly innovating to meet the extravagant demands and limitless budgets of their ultra-high-net-worth clientele. Their mission: to craft the most spectacular, opulent, and uniquely tailored properties, experiences, and services imaginable.
Defined as individuals with at least $30 million in investable assets, these clients are accustomed to paying thousands per night for a hotel room or tens of thousands for a private villa. Their expectations drive a relentless pursuit of perfection in luxury leisure.
Mr. Nocella, whose company, Virtuous Travel & Concierge, partners with advisors to orchestrate bespoke journeys, explains, “we don’t just sell vacations. We provide experiences that match with the client’s wildest demands and expectations.”
During an interview in December at the International Luxury Travel Market’s annual expo in Cannes, Mr. Nocella shared anecdotes illustrating the lengths his team goes to when standard VIP treatment falls short:
- One client insisted on having every trace of the color red removed from his hotel room.
- Another desired a special treat for his teenage son: a private soccer game in one of Italy’s national stadiums, playing alongside renowned professional athletes.
- And perhaps the most specific request: a hotel room with a west-facing window where “the sun had to set on the horizon, not behind a tree or a mountain, but directly over the sea.” (He successfully found such a room in Portofino.)
Jack Ezon, founder and managing director of Embark Beyond, a New York-based luxury travel advisory, notes that for these clients, luxury is often more about emotion than tangible possessions. “You want to feel more special than anyone else,” he said.
The Skyrocketing High End of Travel
This year, approximately 2,500 exhibitors and an equal number of luxury travel advisors converged in Cannes—a tenfold increase since the expo’s inception in 2001, underscoring the burgeoning significance of the luxury market. According to a report by Dublin-based analytics firm Research and Markets, the luxury travel sector, which caters to “affluent travelers seeking exclusive, personalized and immersive experiences that blend comfort, culture and customization,” was valued at $1.77 trillion in 2025 and is projected to reach $2.1 trillion by 2033, demonstrating a compound annual growth rate of 3.4 percent.
The report attributes this growth to several factors: increasing disposable income among high-net-worth individuals, the expansion of international tourism, a rise in premium hospitality infrastructure, growing demand for experiential travel, and wider availability of luxury travel services.
The ILTM exhibitors’ booths themselves mirrored the extravagance of the products they showcased. Designed to resemble elegant libraries, cozy living rooms, or sophisticated office lounges, they were adorned with plush carpeting, exotic palm trees, fine paintings, captivating photographs, and loaded bookshelves. Attendees could enjoy espresso, gourmet pastries, regional delicacies, chocolates, and Champagne, even if they were just casually passing by.
Each offering at the expo seemed to outdo the last: resort villas boasting private cinemas, multiple swimming pools, exclusive beaches, personal chefs, and yoga instructors; behind-the-scenes private tours of renowned museums, prestigious fashion ateliers, and major sports events; hotels where musicians perform live in your room; and ultra-exclusive resorts on private islands, such as the upcoming Bulgari Resort and Residences Cave Cay. This Bahamian haven, scheduled to open in 2027, will feature 64 suites and villas, alongside 48 customer-owned “mansions and estates” spread across 220 acres.
Even more exclusive is the Rosewood Ranfaru, also set to open in 2027, with 120 one- to five-bedroom villas, each with its own swimming pool. Built at a reported cost of $343 million across a series of private islands in the Maldives, some of these villas will occupy entire islands.
This luxury ecosystem has given rise to a new breed of travel advisor. Their role extends far beyond simple flight and hotel bookings. Often collaborating with specialists from destination management companies, these professionals meticulously orchestrate every detail of a trip: airport transfers, private flights, stays in resorts, villas, boutique hotels, or yachts, every meal, every limousine journey, every exclusive private tour to places inaccessible to others, and every spontaneous change of plan. Their aim is to shield clients from the burden of even the slightest disappointment or logistical challenge.
“For our members, it’s where can I go and what can I do, and often the price is secondary,” says Sylvain Langrand, CEO of Velocity Black, a luxury concierge service. Clients pay an annual $3,000 fee for comprehensive attention on trips that can cost up to $20,000 per night.
(These companies employ diverse fee structures. Some advisors or concierges charge annual fees that can soar into the tens of thousands of dollars; others primarily earn through commissions; still others might impose hourly or weekly fees in addition to other charges.)
Should anything go awry—a client disliking the hotel sheets, their driver not being immediately present outside a restaurant, or a sudden decision to abandon a hotel for a yacht party—they can simply text the service 24/7 for an instant resolution. “A lot of luxury is not having to worry about anything,” Mr. Langrand emphasized.
‘Kill Them With Kindness’
Just as the role of a travel advisor has evolved, so too has that of a hotel concierge. “You have to personalize every single detail,” explains Alberto Selas, general manager of the five-star Nobu Hotel in Barcelona. Guests complete pre-arrival questionnaires detailing their preferences. They might request, “‘OK, I want to have a bottle of a specific brand of tequila in my room with two shot glasses,’” Mr. Selas recounts. “Maybe they want to travel with their dog, and they want special vegetarian biscuits for the dog. They want the water to be a certain temperature.”
What about clients who are seemingly impossible to please? Enver Arslan, general manager of the upcoming Bulgari Resort Ranfushi in the Maldives, shared his secret: distract, deflect, and lavish them with complimentary gestures.
In a previous role at a Maldives resort, where rooms cost between $4,000 and $15,000 per season, Mr. Arslan recalled a client who, during monsoon season, angrily summoned him, pointing out the window: “It’s been raining for four days.”
Instead of “explaining why it rains,” Mr. Arslan immediately invited the guest for drinks and backgammon at the bar.
“Give them Champagne, give them a free spa treatment, upgrade to a suite,” he advised. “Complimentary service is part of hospitality. Kill them with kindness.”
It’s a demanding endeavor, constantly discovering new ways to delight individuals who navigate life unburdened by the concept of limitations. Yet, it’s a challenge the industry professionals readily embrace.
Once, to soothe a client panicking because a monsoon had eroded the beach around his $40,000-a-night villa in the Seychelles, Mr. Ezon arranged an emergency shipment of sand. On another occasion, he oversaw the installation of wall-to-wall carpeting on a 225-foot yacht chartered for $750,000 a week. The reason? The wife “didn’t want to take her stilettos off,” he explained—and the yacht owners certainly didn’t want any damage to the wooden decks.
“There are no boundaries,” he concluded. “Think of the craziest thing you can think of. We’ll do it.”
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