Living the Luxe Life

Meet Henry

This weekend we were supposed to be in Paris. In fact, at the moment I am writing this I can say that we should be in the air, on our way to Luton, UK via Silverjet. We were going to fly from Luton, which is outside of London, to Paris. Silverjet, a start-up luxury airline was supposed to take possession of a second jet this week but it didn’t. My flight going to Luton wasn’t canceled but my flight home was. So, no go. Forget Paris.

The problem was pretty frustrating to me because I can usually work my way through the world of travel.  But, trying to fly to Europe in midsummer is a costly ordeal. To give you an example, the cost of flying home from Paris, one way, would have cost about $4,000. And we are talking coach. So, forget Paris.

 Even though I am quite upset about not going, I am pleased that I am going to have another weekend with my garden (sample shown above). I’m also glad not to leave my cats at home alone. The weather is going to be rainy but the New York Times says it will be sultry. Who would want to miss that?

I’ve heard experts say that in the sales process, people
really want to be sold, they just don’t want to be overly conscious that it’s happening. I found that difficult to comprehend until just the other day.
I was driving through my town and saw that a new veterinarian’s office had opened. I was thrilled. I like the vet I use now, but his office is a bit far from my house and his boarding facilities are okay, not great. This vet’s office was just blocks away from my home and by all accounts, appeared to be rather state of the art. I was so excited, I could barely take the time to park the car before jumping out and running into the office so I could hear about how this place was going to make my life, and my pets’ lives, much easier.
The woman behind the desk seemed nice enough, and so I relayed my excitement about the new office opening and quickly inquired about boarding, explaining that I travel a lot. She in turn silently took out a piece of paper and methodically wrote down all of the rules that I would have to follow for getting my cats into this facility. By the time she got down to the bottom of the list, I felt as if I were enrolling my cats into college. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if she even wanted strange animals coming through the door, which I think was going to be a problem for her, this being a veterinarian’s office and all. I thanked her for the
information and she nodded. After I left, I realized I hadn’t even asked her about the boarding facilities, which probably were pretty nice. But there was no way I was going back in there. I actually felt pretty let down, if you want to know the truth.
It got me thinking, how difficult would it have been for her to sway me to become a client? Admittedly, that’s not what doctor’s offices typically do, but she had opened a new facility on Long Island, where there are already quite a few vets. I was a ready-to-be-sold client. I was very open about being willing to switch from the vet I was currently using. I made it clear that I spend a lot of money annually on exams, boarding and inoculations for my pets and am willing to pay even more to a veterinary practice that is more special in any way, shape or form than the one I am using now. Heck, the fact that we were neighbors was going to be enough for me. I desperately wanted to be sold and yet this woman hadn’t made the slightest effort to secure my business.

From the Agent’s Angle
Similarly, travel agents must be careful that they’re not missing the opportunity to sell their services to potential customers. Odds are, if someone you meet shows an interest in the fact that you are a travel consultant, they are really trying to find out what you can offer them. Everyone travels these days, and they’re all searching to find out what the next travel professional can provide for them in the way of services and expertise.
If you think about it from the travel agent’s perspective, asking a prospective client about why they are no longer using their previous travel agent (or online booking agency) is a smart practice because it provides a launching point on which to hang the benefits and features that you offer. If I had been asked about why I wanted to leave the vet I currently use, the new vet could have easily told me why her services were better.
And, if you really want to do it right, you’ll avoid doing what my almost-new veterinarian did, which is listing a litany of the do’s-and-don’ts of our relationship before we’ve even had a proper hello.

There are times when we’re traveling when we acknowledge that we are paying a set amount for an experience and should expect only a limited level of service and product. Perhaps it’s a three-star hotel that of course doesn’t provide 24-hour room service or a concierge in the lobby waiting to cater to our every whim. That’s a business proposition that we’re willing to accept. Oddly enough, when these properties do surpass our expectations, we react as if we’ve been handed the moon because we had no expectations at all.
But in other instances, we’ve have been promised the sun and the stars and every planet in the universe by a supplier claiming “to take luxury to new limits.” No matter how cynical we are, we’re always tempted to try these upstarts, wondering “What can this provider do to surpass the best of what we’ve already experienced?” Unfortunately, when all of these special promises end up being all talk, we’re left wanting, uncomfortable and angry because we’re savvy enough to know what good service really is.
The promise of luxury service can also disappoint when it’s not delivered by that brand that has a stellar reputation for five-star service. My list of “oopses” that I experienced in 2006 include the cabin steward on a luxury cruise who introduced herself to us in the beginning of our voyage, vowing to take care of our every request, but who never quite materialized again. Then there was the general manager at a “luxury” hotel who revealed he had no idea that a long list of top-notch travel agents were actually staying at his hotel. As a result, the services the agents received during their stay were so-so at best and several of them vowed to never send a client there again. It takes years to recover from a blunder of this proportion.
More recently, I stayed at a new small hotel that was a member of one of the luxury hotel groups. I hadn’t heard of the property but I had every confidence that it would be fabulous, since the brand promise of the luxury consortia was extremely high. Where do I begin? I’d say that the worst problem I encountered during my stay was that there was no hot water in the morning. On some days there was some, on other days, none at all. That the low-profile general manager didn’t send a letter of apology out to every guest to explain that the water temperature problem had been resolved led me to believe that this was an on-going problem at the hotel. It also made me doubt the inspection process of the luxury consortia, which I concluded was simply overly anxious to have a hotel in this highly desirable city on its roster of offerings.
Few things are worse than having a promise broken, and we rarely forget when this happens. Alternately, when the promise of luxury is fulfilled correctly we get that breathless, heady feeling, believing if only for a few minutes that magic really does exist.
The common link to all of my encounters was that the individuals involved either refused to deliver high-quality service because it didn’t fit into their personal credo of what they felt they should be doing, or they were not properly trained to bring that intuitive instinct to service, to sense what the guests’ needs were before they were even verbalized.
My question to you is, are you doing the same thing in your own business? Are you setting boundaries on what you’ll do for a client because his/her requests don’t fit into your business plan? If you are, I suggest you consider your own luxury-service disappointments over the past year to determine if you’ve let your clients down similarly. Perhaps it was refusing to book their younger sister’s plane trip home from college because you don’t do air-only travel. Maybe that client who always stays at Caneel Bay at Christmas wants to take his/her extended family on a premium-level cruise because they’ve got six children in the group, but you only sell luxury cruises.
Don’t set limits on the luxury service you deliver. Even if you don’t see to the deed personally, have someone on your staff who can devote their time to such situations. Sometimes delivering the simplest task can wow your client and keep them coming back, or sending strong referral business to you for travel that will deliver high-margin profits to your business.

We were reading The New York Times last month when an ad in the first section caught my eye. It was for a basketball that had the Chanel logo on it. “You can now buy a Chanel basketball,” I said to my husband. We both said, “Hmm,” and kept reading.
It wasn’t until the next day that I decided this was one of the most ridiculous things that I had ever seen. Nothing against Chanel—love them, really—but isn’t this the perfect example of overextending your branding by putting your logo in places it doesn’t belong?
It calls to mind that made-up word, “masstige,” which is formed from the words “mass” and “prestige” and is defined as “prestige for the masses.” (The term was popularized by Michael Silverstein and Neil Fiske in their book, “Trading Up.”) The concept is all about dumbing down ordinarily luxurious brands so that the mass market has access to them. The danger, however, is that when ultra-luxe brands take the masstige route they are in danger of losing their exclusive appeal to those who were once willing to pay top-dollar for their products.
For luxury travel advisors, the message is that it’s important to know the difference between travel products that are masstige and those that are truly luxury. There are travel suppliers who will swear up and down that they are luxury, but simply are not. They’ve simply latched onto a word that has become one of the most overly used and abused in the English dictionary.
Not only do these wannabes not have the product, they have no interest in implementing—or paying for— the level of service it takes to really be a luxury player. Simply put, smacking a Chanel label on a basketball does not make it a luxury basketball.
If you aren’t certain if a so-called “luxury” supplier can properly service your affluent travelers and you are unable to visit with them firsthand, test them. How do they treat you when you first call or e-mail them for information? Do they take a long time to respond? Are they spending most of their time trying to get off the phone with you or are they making an extra effort to understand what your clients are looking for?
Now, take a look at your own business and ask if you are doing the same. Will prospective clients who approach you get a luxury vibe the moment they visit your website, or will they see cascades of rock-bottom deals bursting off the page? How does your front-line agent answer the phone in your offices? (Hint: Shrieking, “Hello?” is a bad sign).
Of course, few people reading this will find themselves in this situation, but the point is that every aspect of your business must reflect the level of luxury that your affluent customers are accustomed to.
Additionally, if you are going to affiliate your agency and your well-earned brand name with another purveyor of luxury products, ascertain that the level of service they hold claim to is equal to yours. Nothing can tarnish your reputation more quickly than the company you keep.
For insight into a luxury travel advisor who is making great strides in affiliating her agency with other personalities in the ultra-upscale market, see page 56 for our profile on Malaka Hilton of Admiral Travel Gallery. Malaka has taken the concept of collaborating with others to an entirely new level and is creating fresh travel product for her clients that they will not find anywhere else. You’ll find her energy and her creativity to be incredibly inspiring. This luxury travel advisor is definitely one to watch in the coming years.

Do you have a network of luxury travel agents that you can tap into for advice? I’m not talking about attending your travel agency consortium’s annual confab, or the colleagues who sit beside you, I mean a group of outside, go-to buddies that you can seek input from when you’re sending someone to a country you’ve never been to before.
Networking is so important for travel agents—it’s a key practice for finding new clientele and for getting quality face time with suppliers. But the needs of luxury travel advisors are much different from those who sell mass market-style vacations; so much so that stepped-up networking strategies are essential for them.
Peter Carideo, president/owner of CRC Travel and this month’s cover topic, says he will from time to time call upon his friend Kelly Shea of Earle Travel in Indianapolis to have her review an itinerary he has created for Greece, which is her specialty. He says he gladly does the same for her, or for other agents who seek out his assistance in areas in which he is particularly savvy. “It makes us all look good. Admitting you don’t know something is very intelligent,” says Carideo.
My suggestion is that if you don’t have a circle of luxury travel agent friends you can tap into for assistance from time to time, you establish one now. Be sure to select agents who specialize in separate parts of the world and in different niches, so that each can provide a unique vantage point. They can certainly be members of the consortium you belong to, but why not create a cross section from other groups that you don’t know that much about? Each luxury travel agency association offers up different strengths, and it’s always beneficial to hear things from a different perspective. If you’re looking for suggestions on where to find these people, look no farther than the pages of Luxury Travel Advisor, where each month we bring you a variety of expert agents who are extremely articulate about their areas of strength.
You can establish your group within your geographical community (I’m sure the sales director of your local luxury hotel would be happy to host a meeting of the top travel advisors in his/her neighborhood). Another option is to create an on-line community wherein you can exchange luxury travel tips, or, of course, there’s always e-mail or the phone! The point is to communicate and to share so that you can all grow your businesses by serving your clients better.
If you’re hesitant about giving away some of your inner-most secrets to your newly found community, consider this: At this moment in time, there is enough luxury travel business to go around for everyone. The luxury agents I’ve spoken to so far this year are already out of breath from the business that’s flowing in. It seems as if their clients woke up the day after New Year’s just craving over-the-top travel. They’re already booking next Christmas, aside from their annual summer vacations and a few lavish weekend getaways in between. Some luxury travel advisors, I’m told, have even been able to raise their fees because demand for their exclusive services is so strong.
By the way, because the number of high-net-worth individuals is growing at a faster pace than ever, you should be re-qualifying your clients in case they’ve become millionaires while you weren’t looking. If they’re suddenly living a more affluent lifestyle, they are likely looking for more affluent travel than they had in the past. Next time they reach out to you for a trip, try selling to them “from the top down,” by offering them a suite instead of a standard room and a private car and driver instead of a tour bus. They just might bite. That’s another Peter Carideo tip.

Do you have a client who is newly affluent? If so, do they know what’s available to them in the world of travel? Those who have only recently come into their wealth will likely want to take the vacation they’ve always dreamed of. It could be a Caribbean cruise, a week in Tahiti, heck, it could even be a trip to Disney World. The point is, if they have not yet traveled extensively, their dreams may have only skimmed the surface of what life holds for them.
And so, it’s up to you to let them know about all of the good things that are available between the airplane trip and the hotel. Do they know that if they are venturing off to Rome that you can arrange a private viewing of the Vatican for them? If they are embarking on a cruise, have they been briefed about the benefits of having a private car and driver to take them around a city for a day, stopping wherever they like?
James Little, chef concierge at The Peninsula Beverly Hills, notes that “If you have massive wealth, a lot of doors are open to you…sometimes clients just need that little push out the door.” He says that if he spots a hotel guest who he knows has the ability to enjoy a quality of life much more than they currently are, he’ll take them aside to suggest possible experiences they may not be aware of.
Little, who was speaking at the American Express Publishing Luxury Summit in Palm Beach last month, tells the story of a man in his thirties who was visiting the Peninsula for the first time. Like any good chef concierge, Little happened to know that this guest had recently inherited the family business and had come into a vast fortune. Despite this fact, he seemed quite reticent about enjoying the amenities at the hotel, and when he asked if it was all right if he used the pool, Little finally pulled him aside and said asked him what he would really like to do on this visit to Los Angeles.
“He said he wanted to go to a nightclub and asked if I could get him in.” Not only was it possible, Little set up a fabulous evening with VIP access to a series of clubs for the guest who has now happily found his niche in L.A.’s jetset scene.
“He calls me up now to tell me what the hottest clubs are,” laughs Little.
A word of caution, however. If you have a new client and you’re not certain of what their desires are in terms of experience or spending, it’s vital you approach them unobtrusively.
Craig Dickmann, boutique director of Cartier, Palm Beach, says that his staff is careful to never pre-judge anyone who enters their Worth Avenue store. Because Cartier is in a retail setting, “the front door is a constant barrier, so we must be welcoming,” says Dickmann, who was also speaking at the Luxury Summit. “We ask, ‘what brings you to Cartier?’ We offer them a seat and we bring them a drink. We use their name throughout the process but it’s not scripted, it’s intuitive,” he says, noting that it’s all about gradually raising the client’s comfort level during the visit. “You must allow them to make the decision of how far they want to go. It’s about asking the right questions and getting them to trust you with personal questions.”
It’s almost like being a therapist, isn’t it? The most important thing is to write down all of this great information you’re drawing out of your client. If you’ve asked them how they’ve been and they say they’ve just had a birthday celebration for their daughter, write down the date in your records. Keep a diary of your clients’ likes and dislikes, of how they spend their leisure time.
Once you have a sense of them, feel free to push them out the door to enjoy what this world has to offer, with your guidance, of course!

What is it about packing for a trip that makes me absolutely crazy? I always start out simply enough, with the proper number of matching outfits that fit neatly into my garment bag. Ten minutes later, they’re positively buried by disorganized piles of other clothing options that I simply must also have access to should the need arise.
There are actually just two types of people in the world: those who love to pack, and those who abhor it. One luxury travel advisor recently told me that packing is practically her favorite part of her trip because it fills her with anticipation of the journey before her. For the rest of us, it’s a quagmire of indecision and an inability to edit out those 10 extra outfits we will never, ever wear, whether at home or abroad.
The situation has gotten much worse since the tighter restrictions on luggage weight have been implemented; in fact, my last act prior to leaving the house before a big trip has typically become balancing my larger-than-life suitcase onto a tiny household scale to ensure that it doesn’t weigh more than 40 pounds. Invariably it does, and suddenly I’m pulling out vee-neck tops and lycra skirts I haven’t worn in years and trying to slip them into my husband’s carry-on bag as the cab to the airport is waiting in my driveway.
I know in my heart that all of this hoopla arises from the fact that travel truly does allow the traveler to recreate themselves on a new stage each time they step outside their front door, which is really when the trip begins, and for those moments, one must be properly dressed. (What’s better than wearing a fresh, sporty outfit as one is sitting in the first-class lounge of an international airline?)
Of course, none of this recreation of self is possible without the assistance of an excellent luxury travel advisor. These are the professionals who lay the groundwork for their clients every time they build an itinerary for them. By infusing wondrous experiences into a trip agenda you can make them forget about all of their stresses and help them get back to that person they thought they would be on the day they graduated from college. These experiences can be simple enough, such as scoping out a special bistro on a Paris side street that positively no one else from the States knows about, or cluing them in about a secret flea market that takes place the third Saturday of every month in that quaint European city you’re sending them to visit. Special experiences don’t have to all be about fireworks and caviar; sometimes it’s simply sharing your well-earned travel knowledge with your customers.
Speaking of luxury travel advisors who know how to make it happen for their clients, I was fortunate to attend Crystal Cruises’ 17th Annual Sales Achievement Awards Gala last month, where I spent quality time with the cruise line’s top producers. (For more on the event, see page 59.) We sailed aboard the Crystal Symphony from Monte-Carlo to Le Verdon (Bordeaux). While the scenery was stunning (that’s me at Eze, with the Mediterranean below), it was the casual conversations with these agents from which I learned so much, whether it’s how to wow a demanding client who’s been everywhere, to how to educate a staff of young agents who are just beginning to explore the the world themselves. In many ways, these agents are also experts at living a good and noble life, all while traversing the globe to experience as many destinations as possible, and while running extremely profitable businesses back home. They are truly inspiring.
I’m now headed to Barcelona for Silversea’s top-producers’ gala cruise, and looking forward to meeting a whole new series of great luxury travel advisors and seeing some of the good friends I just saw on the Crystal Symphony. But first, I must pack. Wish me luck!

There’s a store up the street from our offices here in New York called Boyd’s of Madison Avenue. That it’s on Third Avenue now, just below Bloomingdale’s and next to The Home Depot, indicates that it moved a few years back from a more glamorous neighborhood. But even in its new quarters, Boyd’s still offered an array of magical items that only a tiny, big-city department store could provide. This is the place one where one could find apothecary items such as Vocalzone “throat pastilles,” (they’re to keep your voice clear) and imported toothpaste for $12.99 that you knew worked in more mysterious ways than Crest or Colgate ever could. Boyd’s lingerie department served up underclothing designed to make any odd figure look fabulous under a tight-fitting evening gown and there were all sorts of cosmetics priced for hundreds of dollars in the front of the store that you could sift through aimlessly on a rainy day while you were waiting to meet someone for a lunch date nearby. When my husband last Christmas asked if I could find him a long-handled shoehorn like the one he’d just used in our room at the Ritz-Carlton in Grand Cayman, I knew that Boyd’s would have one. And they did, right up front in a basket near the cash register. I was even able to choose from a selection of handles, as each had a different type of animal’s face etched into it. In the end, I chose the Scotch Terrier’s over the pony’s.
And so I was saddened the other day to walk by and see that the store was closing; everything was 80 percent off. While this scenario usually fulfills my ultimate fantasies (I could buy whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted!), I felt terrible. I walked through and selected a lipstick case that had a sequined shamrock embedded on it and left quickly.
One of the worst parts about Boyd’s closing, besides the fact that the sales people were all positively bereft, was that it was one of my favorite places to recommend to people when they were visiting Manhattan.

It’s amazing when you catch up with friends and family during the holidays how much has happened to them over the course of the year. One friend just had quadruple bypass heart surgery, another got a raise and a promotion. I just heard a dear, and now far-flung, friend lost her mom this year while a couple I know here in New York is moving their jointly owned business uptown to Madison Avenue, thanks to an extremely successful year. The other day I read on my nephew’s blog that his dog got hit by a car out in Hollywood, CA, today I checked the blog again and the dog is happily at home, albeit a bit sore and dejected. Life has a habit of creeping up on us, and it’s tough to avoid the major ups and downs that at times force their way into our otherwise peaceful, day-to-day routines.
What’s so amazing about all the news I just shared is that I received it all electronically by either reaching out to folks I hadn’t heard from for awhile or by their reaching out to me during the holiday season. When I think of it, if it weren’t for e-mail and the Internet in general, I probably wouldn’t have learned about several of these news items for quite some time because to be honest, none of us really take the time to write out lengthy messages on our holiday cards to each other anymore.
I still have a friend from college who encloses one of those generic “Dear friends and family” letters that provides a general update on the entire family on a single sheet of paper. I used to think those letters were the most impersonal way to communicate with someone but these days, she is actually the only one left who still bothers to write a traditional note and send it via snail mail.
My point about all of this is that we all have so much more access to each other than we ever did before. How many of you use your cell phone to constantly update your partner on your whereabouts (as in, “I’m on the train,” “I’m getting off the train,” “I’m in the car, I should be home in five minutes,” or “I’m in the supermarket, do you want chicken or lobster for dinner?” My favorites are the indecisive shoppers who call a friend to ask them if they should buy themselves a piece of apparel and then actually describe it to them over the phone, “It’s blue with a pointy collar, I think it makes me look heavy but only if I stand sideways”). Sometimes it seems as if we’re reaching out to each other for one simple reason, that we can.
These days, there’s really no cause for us to be out of touch with each other at all, unless we’re on a cruise to nowhere or on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.
Which of course means that you have no excuse to be out of touch with your clients in 2007, especially since there are now even more ways to reach out to them electronically than there were before. (Will they be downloading travel itineraries onto their Ipods? I don’t know.)
In sales, it’s important to touch the client in as many ways as possible, however, you should really reach out to them only if your message has meaning to them. Do you have a “tickler” file that reminds you of when their special anniversaries and other commemorative dates are so that you can suggest a trip to them that has meaning? Do you have a system that enables you to implement a one-to-one relationship with them? Do you have lists of their preferences and access to research that will allow you to send them information that is of extreme interest to them? If so, perhaps you can create a truly beautiful e-mail message to them that will catch their eye and encourage them to get right back to you with an affirmative reply that indicates they want to know more about this wonderful trip you’ve got in mind for them. Or, perhaps on a more simple level you may want to reach out to your client via email to get a simple update from them, the way my friends did over the holidays. Who knows, you may find out more has been going on with them than you ever imagined and this information may help you more than ever stylize a vacation for them that will impress their socks off.

And now for a truly revolutionary idea: how about hand-writing a note to your client the old fashioned way, with a beautifully designed itinerary created just for them on parchment paper, with their names enscribed in pen and ink at the top of the page? That’s bound to impress them even more than the most elaborate electronic message you can send them!