Saudi Arabia has emerged as a hot emerging market for Australian high-net-worth (HNW) travellers, according to global luxury travel group, Abercrombie & Kent.
Speaking in Sydney at last week’s Luxperience 2024 during an industry panel, Managing Director Australasia – A&K EVP, Debra Fox, said her brand had seen a strong uptick in interest for Saudi Arabia in recent months.
Discussing the importance of social media for the luxury brand, and for frontline sellers, Fox said it was key for advisors to “educate” themselves.
“The more you’re educated the more you can inspire and take your customer through that potential trip. It also moves away from price, because price is just the cost of falling in love, right?” Fox quipped.
Fox elaborated, saying “people are hungry for knowledge” and that advisors need to inspire clients.
“We share as much as we can and new destinations are really paramount for us, and the emerging customer with that ‘frontier’ travel,” she said.
“In the last 18 months, we’ve opened Namibia, we’ve opened Colombia. Saudi Arabia…now, that was interesting.”
“Saudi Arabia started off quite with a bang. Things kind of eased off a bit – no surprises there. But it is back. We can’t believe the return of Saudi probably just in the last six weeks. Insatiable,” Fox said.
“And people are going in six weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks. Really short, short-term that’s something we’ve seen as well.”
“People are waiting a little bit longer and making more short-term decisions and long term decisions as well.”Abercrombie & Kent has two itineraries that unlock Saudi Arabia. A small-group (18 guests maximum) nine-day itinerary that encompasses Riyadh, AlUla and Jeddah; along with an eight-day Luxury Tailor Made Journey visiting the same destinations. Both itineraries include multi-night stays at the stunning Banyan Tree AlUla.
A Kingdom Revealed is priced from $19,695 per person twin share, while The Desert Kingdom is $19,520 per person.
Fox added that Abercrombie & Kent has an entire “raft” of new destination management companies (DMCs) in the pipeline over the next 12 months in “some of the most remote and emerging destinations in the world, because that’s where the clients want to be, and that’s where the growth is.”
“And it is critical that we have people on the ground so we can deliver the right experiences at the right risk-level, for those clients to take away a gob-smacking life experience. Being able to do that well and not rely on someone else to do that, to us, has been a really important part of our values as well.”
“The more we can share that with you and our learnings. I think that’s really important, because it comes down to the advices at the end.”
