Europe and beach-only breaks likely to be top choices of wealthy travellers

Europe looks set to be the key destination as travel takes off again in the coming months, according to the country’s luxury agents.

As part of an exclusive survey carried out among the TTG Luxury community, two-thirds of all new enquiries made with luxury agents were said to have been for Europe (63%), with the Caribbean also proving popular among 36% of agents, and the Indian Ocean another key choice, with 33% of consultants saying they had had enquiries for the region.

Staycations are also being channelled through travel advisors, with UK & Ireland enquiries taken by 31% of agents; the US was another popular choice, with a quarter of agents having gotten enquiries for America.

A beach holiday was overwhelmingly the most popular enquiry, perhaps indicating customers initially want more of a simple, relaxing holiday as their first option post-lockdown. The survey – which was conducted early in June among 300 respondents – showed that 59% of enquiries had been for “beach-only” breaks.

Despite some fears that city breaks and touring might suffer as a result of people not wanting to be in urban spaces or on multicentre trips, 20% of agents said they had fielded enquiries about city breaks and 20% said touring. When asked if they thought clients would avoid cities now when travelling, 62% actually disagreed.

Interest in cruise also remains stable, with a quarter of agents (24%) saying people had asked about cruising. However, when asked if they thought clients would want to go on less cruises generally, 74% agreed; they also thought “smaller ship cruises” would be preferred, with 76% of agents thinking this would be the case.

Encouragingly, 13% of agents said they had taken enquiries for travel to take place in the next three months, while 27% said their enquiries were for travel in the winter season. The bulk of travel enquiries, though, are for spring 2021 (52%) and summer 2021 (60%), with some also looking to autumn 2021 (15%) and winter (14%).

When it comes to frequency of travel, there are some positive signals on the desire among affluent travellers for 2021, with 64% of luxury agents thinking customers will “take more holidays than usual” next year, as they make up for lost time, and 74% said they think they will spend more on their trips throughout 2021.