Q: What are the aims and ambitions of the Luxury Travel Collection?
DG: This business model was inspired by the incredible House of LVMH, a business which has 75 distinguished Maisons, each with its own distinctive personality and brand, and each one highly successful.
We are building the LVMH of luxury travel. This is our way of bringing the best of the best travel businesses together and nurturing the fame and distinctive personality of each one.
We are embracing the differential of each brand, knowing they are united by a common goal to deliver an exceptional luxury travel experience.
Q: You are calling it “the next generation in luxury travel”. How will you make it happen?
DG: We are already delivering on the ‘next generation’, as you’ve seen from our strategy to win over the right independent members.
As a business, we are scaling luxury quickly and have been supported on this journey to build a bright future for luxury travel by joining brands of all shapes and sizes, allowing each one to flourish and forging the future pathway together.
It began with Travel Associates in Australia and New Zealand and grew from that point following Graham Turner’s (founder of Flight Centre) desire to ‘open up the world for those who want to see it’.
The addition of the new independent members defines and embraces those brands with a common vision of a successful future for luxury travel driven by exceptional client service.
Acquisition is another way for our business to grow. We don’t want to follow paths that have already been ‘done’. We are thinking differently about our opportunities.
We listen to the needs of our brands and our clients and ensure that we build the right foundations for future growth. Importantly, we are always looking outside of the industry to find best-practice examples so we can bring fresh growth strategies to the industry.
Rachel Kingswell, LTC Director of Independent & GM of Travel Associates AU & NZ
Q: The luxury travel market seems to be booming at the moment. What do you put this down to?
RK: There is so much research to support the growth of luxury travel. It’s always been a strong segment and COVID has helped to develop this even further by demonstrating the importance of the values we hold dear to us – and travel is one of those.
Luxury is also evolving as experiences and ‘leaving to learn’ overtakes material items as life’s more important possibilities.
The millennial luxury travel segment is expected to reach $245 million by 2031 with a CAGR of 10.1% (Allied Market Research, Jan 2023).
We also know that the millennial generation has a mindset for luxury and meaningful consumption. They are more travel-oriented than any other generation, which is one of the key reasons that growth will take place over the next five to six years. (Grand View Research, Sep 2022).
Post-COVID, we’ve seen almost a quarter (23%) of affluent Australians spend more on travel in the last year and this trend looks set to continue in the next year or so. (YouGov Luxury travel post-pandemic, Mar 2023).
Q: Why is the launch of LTC good for both travel agents and consumers?
DG: Luxury Travel Collection is a B2B business, however we keep the luxury consumer at the centre of our strategy and we are building a luxury house that delivers what the luxury consumer wants.
The brands we work with are all united by a common goal to deliver exceptional service to luxury clients. Our LTC House is designed to deliver what the luxury consumer wants and this has been embraced by our new independent family members.
Our unique consumer event portfolio combines the holy trinity of luxury supplier with luxury advisor and luxury consumer – it’s the perfect combination to grow luxury travel and we believe we can do this better than any other business.
We are engaging all of our customers on this journey, including the client.
Danielle Galloway, Global Managing Director, LTC
Q: Can we expect to see more well-known brands coming into the LTC family?
RK: Yes, absolutely. Australia and NZ are key markets for this business and we will welcome new brands very soon.
Our GM of the independent portfolio, Nikki Glading, is extremely focused on growing this portfolio in Australia. Globalisation will be the next step.
Q: Tell us a little about Galeries de Luxe, the store that you’ve launched?
DG: Luxury products are a core offer of our luxury ‘house’ and the LTC product collection is inspired by the world’s most-famous retail department stores, such as Selfridges, Harrods, Bloomingdales and Liberty of London. The icons of early 20th century glamour and sophistication.
Like a department store full of luxury labels, Luxury Travel Collection members can shop from this global store of extraordinary leisure partners and be assured that they are choosing a holiday that is curated and bespoke, delivered by high-end partners and unrivalled experience providers with a seamless service delivery. A clear set of product principles guides the selection.
Our selection of products will be purpose-designed for luxury clients so that our advisors have absolute certainty of the suitability of what they are using when they curate itineraries from the Galeries de Luxe.
Products are vetted, they are certain to offer valuable exclusive additions for our members and they are easy to select and incorporate into the ‘luxury shopping tote’ of the advisor, to be curated into the final masterpiece for the client.
Q: Finally, how do you see the luxury travel market evolving and how will LTC evolve with it?
RK: The luxury consumer is getting younger and our brands are evolving to meet and exceed the needs of luxury travellers. It is what we have always done and will continue to do.
Our travel advisors are exceptional at curating travel and keep their skill and knowledge honed with travel and investment in product learning.
Changing consumer desire is why we continue to approach business growth in new ways, by looking for the next opportunity and the next trend that will benefit our business, our brands and our clients.
As an example, expedition cruising is taking off – partly due to new products and brands in the market and partly because luxury clients no longer want to wait for bucket list travel – reading these trends is part of our daily business.
