Luxury Travel

The recent development of high-end niche travel marketplaces demonstrates that luxury travel is expanding in depth, breadth, and focus.

Luxury travel during the past decade has taken off exponentially, driven by growing wealth around the world. It's a natural progression that niche trade shows are popping up to cater to the demand.

Wineries and agriturismo accommodations have long drawn travelers to the Italian countryside. But a more recent development is bringing travelers to Italy's once-abandoned hamlets. Other countries are taking note.

While every destination tries to offer authenticity, few really deliver. But in Italy, scores of local passion projects are serving up the real deal — while helping rural areas make a comeback in a sustainable way.

If leaders continue to look at African conservation as a charitable cause, it is doomed. As a growth industry — yes, an industry — that creates jobs and economic mobility, there is still hope for a sustainable future driven by the very young population on the continent.

The Chinese luxury market is huge but not monolithic. That's why understanding the capabilities of the country's myriad social media apps — and knowing how to nuance messages within them — is key to connecting with this lucrative market.

Luxury brands today are designing stories for global citizens, but telling those stories in different markets requires more than a different app — it's about delivering a message that resonates with the core brand and the local culture that they're speaking to.

Travel marketers need to think outside the box. The icebox, that is. A new research study reports that temperature can impact consumer perceptions of luxury and status.

How consumers feel about luxury products may depend on how they feel. That is, whether they perceive something to be hot or cold.

Asia leads the global hotel pipeline and many more luxury hotels and wellness resorts will be opening in its fragile environments. Low-impact advocates are trying to lead by example, but they're too small and too few to effect a sea change.