Romance and luxury travel is booming
ANN RUPPENSTEIN
Coming out of the pandemic, a growing number of North Americans are looking to splurge for a better overall travel experience.
“Budgets have increased $500 to $1,000 per person,” notes Shalene Dudley, the owner of Latitude Concierge Travels.
At Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Karen Nakai, Global Sales Director — Luxury, Lifestyle & Leisure, reports that “upgraded room categories are being booked and requested post pandemic.”
Both on the leisure travel and corporate side, she says guests are opting to stay longer. Nakai says that bleisure travel is also remaining strong.
“Multi generational family travel has definitely exploded, not just in leisure, but also in our city properties,” she shares.
As for destination weddings, Kim Goldstein, the president of Journeys Travel, says the market is “exploding.”
“The amount of destination wedding requests coming in is crazy,” she notes. “The groups are bigger, they all want to travel together and our groups are booking out over 80% to 85% of the room block that we’re securing, which is pretty impressive.”
Meanwhile, Dudley reports that roughly 10% of her destination wedding requests are for Europe, so she sees opportunity in AMResorts’ portfolio and its parent company as part of World of Hyatt.
“Packages for Europe are needed,” she said. “We need the wedding packages.”
