Luxury curated travel back with a bang post coronavirus-induced lull

Companies catering to a well-heeled niche report higher than pre-pandemic demand for cruises, road trips in India and abroad

For A N Rao, post-retirement life began in the ice caps of Antarctica. In December 2018, the former official of an IT multinational took a flight to Argentina with his wife, and embarked on a cruise ship to the white continent as part of a curated journey by The Q Experiences.

Rao, who is based in Hyderabad, was busy globe-trotting until the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020. It limited his options to domestic road trips. This week, he and his wife will set off for the other end of the globe, the Arctic, on a trip organised by the luxury travel firm.

Luxury bespoke travel is back with a bang, and companies catering to the niche segment are seeing demand higher than pre-Covid levels — especially after the third wave of the pandemic in India at the start of this year.

Rao and his wife will be part of a group of around 100 people exploring the Arctic over 11 days. As a seasoned traveller, he appreciates the value of fully curated services for once-in-a-lifetime expeditions.

“It’s not something you can plan personally. Secondly, ground logistics is a factor, and language and communication can become a nightmare. Curated journeys take care of everything because they have on-ground partners,” he says.

Recalling his Antarctica trip, he says nothing can prepare a first-time visitor for the pristineness of the experience. “Imagine, on January 1st, 2019, I retired in Antarctica. And I had idli, sambar and khichdi for breakfast and veg biryani for lunch,” he says, emphasising the personalisation that was assured.

Besides ensuring safety and certainty of travel, he adds, the trip was made richer and informative by the presence of 12-15 specialists such as a geologist, ornithologist and climate expert.

Bhavna Lulla Bahroos, head of operations at The Q Experiences, which is based in Mumbai, says their packages for this year sold out fast with many requests transferred to 2023 journeys.

“For two years, people were not able to travel. Now, instead of investing in tangible assets they are going in for experiential travel,” she says, adding the travel firm’s journeys promise just that.

For the Arctic trip, it charges Rs 12 lakh per head, and for the Antarctica cruise Rs 15 lakh.

Tushar Agarwal, founder of Adventures Overland, says the expedition firm has received an unprecedented number of requests this year. “We recently did a road trip in Turkey, with a group of 40 people. Normally, we would take only 20-25.” He says that people are looking to travel with the easing of restrictions and also finding road trips to be a safer option because of the choice of using one’s own vehicle.

Before the pandemic, Adventures Overland was mostly organising overseas trips. That changed post-Covid, with domestic road trips becoming the norm.

“Many are still hesitant to travel abroad, but within India it has picked up. Where we were only doing one trip in India before, now we have seven or eight in a year,” says Agarwal.

The most popular destinations in India are Lahaul and Spiti Valley in Himachal, and Ladakh — both ideal for adventure seekers and road trippers. A luxury trip to the Spiti Valley takes about a week and costs Rs 90,000-95,000, while the Ladakh journey spans two weeks and costs Rs 1.7-1.8 lakh.

Adventures Overland gets most enquiries for international tours. Popular drives include routes in Jordan, Morocco, Oman and Kyrgyzstan, covering a range of terrain from sand dunes, historic sites, rugged mountains, and glaciers. A typical drive is for a week to 10 days and costs around Rs 2.5 lakh to 3 lakh.

The company is also planning a long journey, Road to London, that will cover 20 countries starting with Iran and 16,000 km over 55 days. More than 20 people have signed up for it.

The pandemic pushed Adventures Overland to the brink of shutting down, Agarwal admits, as it was mostly reliant on international travel. Luckily for it, its customers did not compel the company to return their deposits, which helped weather the storm.

Before Covid, the company had begun looking for investors as it wanted to expand. No investor was willing to risk it during the pandemic. “But of late, we have started receiving a lot of enquiries and interest from venture capitalists because they have found the business model to be very promising and the financial markets also feel the industry is going to pick up,” he says.

For Quintessentially, a concierge service provider that offers luxury lifestyle management to its member clients, there has been a big spike in leisure travel queries March onwards.

Mishti Bose, group CEO, Quintessentially India, says that despite hikes in hotel tariffs and airfares luxury travel is on an upswing. “As against 2019, we have seen an increase of 70-75 per cent in revenues in 2022,” she says, adding that customers are valuing premium, personalised end-to-end services more than ever.

Privacy and exclusivity of services, including luxury travel, were always at the core of Quintessentially; post-Covid, safety has got an additional thrust. And although the pandemic resulted in a flat curve and no new membership, its clients are back to booking villas and boutique hotels across the world, including in Europe despite the ongoing war in Ukraine.