Tapping into the luxury tourism market is incredibly tempting — there’s no shortage of tourists and money isn’t an issue. But just like any tourism market, the luxury market comes with its own quirks and perks. Before embarking on any kind of campaign to attract these customers, you should do your due diligence. And we’re going to help you.

To get the best information we’ve teamed up with with Carolyn Childs, Evidence-based Strategist & Director at MyTravelResearch.com for our March webinar: How tour operators and attractions can appeal to luxury travellers. She’s been working with Luxperience in a strategic partnership to uncover trends, opportunities and challenges facing the luxury travel industry. In the lead up to the webinar, we asked her to give us a snapshot of the industry.

This is what we uncovered:

Luxury travellers are diverse

The typical luxury traveller no longer exists, they’re not all older people who have spent years and years amounting their wealth. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram's Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are just a few of the younger millionaires today. And as Carolyn says, there’s no doubt Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump would have completely diverse tastes when it comes to travel styles, despite both being luxury travellers.

“We’ve got to stop thinking about mono lists of people,” she says. “You throw into the mix new generation millionaires and billionaires, and they are just as likely to be from China and India, instantly the expectations are different.”

For tour and activity operators this means that there are a lot of different opportunities to appeal to these travellers.

It’s about the experience

The good news for operators is it’s about the experience, which is what your business provides. And as we now know the luxury traveller is diverse and therefore their expectations of an experience are too. Some luxury travellers want to experience the wilderness and push their limits on a polar exploration or trip to Antarctica. Other’s want that privacy 5-star exclusivity private resorts such as Qualia offer to their travellers. “People pay a lot and expect a lot”. Carolyn says. “If you look at the world through the eyes of these people it’s the world they live in. Some don’t have to open a door, everything is done for them.”

Advertising for luxury travellers can be tricky

Don’t make the mistake of advertising directly to the luxury traveller. If you’re trying to attract a luxury client you need to speak to the people who are organising these trips for them, because the likelihood of them organising their own trips is minimal.

“In this industry it’s more about building relationships with the trade and having a fabulous content marketing plan,” Carolyn says.

Pay great attention to your website, Instagram feed and Pinterest page. Carolyn says your content needs to tell a story so the people who are organising the travel for the luxury traveller can go back and show the traveller what the experience involves. She says outbound efforts such as advertising in the Economist and Forbes command such a high price tag because they are specifically targeted publications, likely being read by a luxury traveller.

There’s so much more

Luxury travel is extremely diverse industry. There’s no one size fits all in the luxury market and this means there are plenty of opportunities for operators to break in. Join us for the webinar and you’ll learn the current trends, you’ll leave knowing if targeting the luxury market is right for your business, what that means in terms of what you need to do and who your customers are and you’ll be armed with practical takeaways about what that might look like.

Download Booking Boss' third #TourismTakeaway webinar: How tour operators and attractions can appeal to luxury travellers today.

Booking Boss is an online booking system for tour operators and attraction providers. Trusted by many in the tourism industry, Booking Boss is about getting you out of the spreadsheets and into the sun. We provide free education resources for operators like you, to make your business the best it can possibly be.