Travellers will still pay for luxury holidays

ABTA convention delegates were told that holidaymakers were still prepared to pay a premium for authentic travel experiences.

The director of business development for Gold Medal Travel, Martin Lomax, noted that up to 50 per cent of Britons surveyed said they agreed with the following statement about luxury holiday travel: “These holidays are all about the experience.”

While speaking at a session called “Selling Luxury,” he said: “Luxury is now about authenticity and the enhanced experience and you must differentiate your product.”

The Gold Medal executive commented that the company’s Pure Luxury Holidays division was currently planning two holidays, each priced at approximately 500,000 pounds.

“Our average selling price is 7,500 pounds and the most expensive holiday we have sold so far has been for 110,000 pounds, but that is about to be beaten with those holidays in the pipeline,” Lomax continued.

He stressed that the travel market is resilient and that the luxury sector is continuing to grow. Statistics that he quote show 1.6 million people claim a disposable annual income of more than 100,000 pounds, and that five million earned salaries in excess of 50,000 pounds per year.

Thanks to www.travelmole.com for the above quotes, for more information please visit their website.

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