Somewhere in the Skies, Fish Ceviche Is Being Served
Coming up in Singapore Airlines A380 First Class Dining, with World-renowned chef Alfred Portale, served with the ultimate Givenchy china full-set, no less. And the new luxury size stemless wine glasses? A glory to behold. ˜ But not exactly "massclusivity". Joe Sharkey, On the Road - NY Times. Click to continue
Flight Attendants vs. Passenger: Care to Step Outside?
Flight attendant Elliot Hester takes on NY Times blogger Pico Iver, who had asked why U.S. carriers "have far and away the worst ˜ most surly, inattentive, and often snooty˜service in the world". In a spirited defense of the people "who are the face of the airline", Hester, with 20 years of service and 5,000 flights under his belt, makes sure he puts the blame where it belongs. Guess. Click to continue
A Dark, Stormy and Costly Hotel Night
Chris Barnett, a regular columnist for The Brancatelli File, reflects on a dark and stormy January night in San Francisco, searching for a reasonably priced room. The not-so-subtle lesson for business travelers? "Be prepared to dig deep this year for a hotel room in a major city. And don't expect your corporate rates or frequent travel program status to mean much". Happily, Chris throws in a nice compliment for The Benjamin in NY along the way.
The word “package” is not often associated with luxury stays---but at a time when every upscale hotel boasts fancy sheets and an array of butlers, a new one-upmanship tactic in packaging for the affluent appears on the marketing scene.
A recent MSNBC piece on what they call “quirky” packages unearthed a few eye-catching examples. Whether guests actually take advantage of these packages or they are used as “positioning statements” has been a longtime question in the business. But creative ones definitely attract attention; consider these:
When a guest books a $60,000 “engagement dinner” at the James Hotel in Chicago, chef David Burke of davidburke and donatella restaurant fame prepares the meal for the couple while a quartet from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra plays for the duration of the meal, and a 1.5 carat Van Cleef & Arpels diamond comes “at no extra charge.”
A 2007 Snapshot: The Affluent & Luxury Markets-A Media Matters Report from The American Associaion of Advertising Agencies, Prepared by MMR Inc. and based on the Mendelsohn Affluent Survey. Click here to view a chart of the top 20 Luxury Magazines.
Luxury Goods Annual Retail Sales Soar to $220 billion.
Global millionaires reach 9,500,000 in 2006; double a decade ago.
What Insights for Luxury Travel Marketers in U.S. and Beyond?
In From the Media we provide highlights from mainstream business and travel publications that have particular relevance for all high-end travel marketers. We enjoyed the lively presentations from senior writer Peter Gumbel. Here are a few nuggets—
"…Luxury is no longer reserved for the spoiled rich.
Increasingly it is the domain of the global middle class on an ego
trip…prepared to pay a premium for the thrill of owning something that
makes them feel special..."
What does luxury mean if everyone is doing it? Wall Street says RELAX. Luxury is a "giant pyramid", where anywhere looks good. Fortune quotes Louis Vuitton CEO Yves Carcelle to the effect that confusion does not exist in the marketplace. "Consumers are much more intelligent than one imagines."
A note from the Hotel Side: Big interior revamping at Plaza
Athenee in Paris –why? COO Francois Delahaye says it’s an attempt to
bring in a younger affluent crowd to pay those $950 a night rates for a
standard room. "The sons and daughters of our guests" he says, "are
fed up living with Louis XV style."
We began our recent report on ‘Family Travel Rising’ with the following:
“All the evidence -- whether you are looking at the Amex-Harrison Group study we reviewed in our last issue, or the Ipsos Mendelsohn Affluence Report completed in September, -- shows Family First when it comes to disposable dollars.
We believe family focus is going to be front of mind for a long time to come, long after the punishing economic climate has subsided. Provider brands will be hard pressed to provide much more than kiddie or junior, or young adult activities. Smart travel agents will have to rise to higher levels of creativity and performance on the family front to sustain customer loyalty and earn the benefits of word of mouth in the neighborhood.”
And last week we caught our favorite global traveler-editor-writer-commentator during a quiet moment at home in England, the home of The Gostelow Report. She shared these thoughts:
• The hotel industry has been very slow to realize that this big expansion in family travel was going to happen. We’ve had “connecting rooms and you can put the kids next door”. They moved on to two swimming pools rather than one. One was kid friendly and one was not. But we really haven’t had anything more than that.
• We are seeing more and more bigger family groups. Operators are having a real challenge coping with such groups because it’s not a group per se, but they form their own groups. They want to be private. They want their own thing. .They tend to do their own excursions. They suddenly want a bus to take them all out. So it’s a real, real challenge. And so far the hotel industry has not realized this is happening. Now, it’s not only families. We’re also seeing more and more groups of friends traveling. And the hotel industry is not incentivizing enough – say a pair of DINKs come- Double-Income-No-Kids. There’s no incentive to them at the moment to bring along two other friends or even four other friends. And there’s big potential on the marketing side there.
Everybody knows her, but her bio is worth repeating.
Mary Gostelow, president of Gostelow Travel: Hottest Hospitality News Worldwide, is an inveterate traveler on the road more than 300 days a year. She owns and publishes the definitive Gostelow Reports, monthly market intelligence briefings to the top levels of the hospitality industry. She is the editor of KIWI's online Wow! Magazine, and also sends out a monthly update to top travel professionals worldwide.
At the same time, she is contributing editor to such publications as Elite Traveler, enRoute, Hotels and Le Magazine.
But Lux 360 Found a Brighter -and we think, Sensible Side-
From Harvey Chipkin’s report in the British online Hotel Report-a paid service from William Reed Business Media- http://www.wr-bi.co.uk/ - Reproduced here with publisher permission
At the first industry wide meeting following the fall financial meltdown and the recent presidential election, the consensus seemed to be that, yes, the industry faces a historically challenging situation that will last for awhile. But there was also a feeling that lodging is in a better position than other industries – and, happily, a few silver linings were perceived as well.
We’ve all heard the bad news over and over: global liquidity drought, drops in rate and occupancy, a dismal outlook for employment, and a possibly extended recession. But some leaders managed to find ways to take – if not a positive view -- at least a more nuanced one. Following are a few comments about why weeping and gnashing may not be the only appropriate attitudes.
Steve Joyce, who recently became CEO of Choice Hotels International, said he has been “the only optimistic person in the room at a number of events over the last few weeks.” I strongly believe,” said Joyce, “that there is a paralysis factor and that you can’t base projections on two weeks of hysteria.”
“Forecasts in this environment,” he continued, “are entertaining but not much use.”
Other ‘smart marketer’ insights from Joyce, Mark Lomanno of Smith Travel Research; Peter Yesawich, CEO of The Y Partnership; Michael Kaufman, Chairman of National Restaurant Association; Patrick Ford, CEO of Lodging Econometrics; and Roger Thomas, Steve Wynn’s design guru for many years.
Nat Ives, in Ad Age Online Sept 6, cites new data from Ipsos MMR which assures that well-off readers read print publications just as much now as they did 5 years ago.
Also, survey respondents making more than $100,000 annually said their average hours online had grown to 22.1 each week from 10.7, while the time they said they spent watching TV sunk to 18.6 hours from 23.7 in the 2003 survey. Read the full Ives story at http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=130685. Lux 360 attended the client briefing this week and will provide additional perspective in our Sept. 30 issue, interviewing Ipsos MMR President Bob Shullman.
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