The International Luxury Travel Market 2019 by ILTM Asia Pacific that was recently held in Singapore got together travellers, luxury tour operators, spa consultants, travel journalists, wellness destination resorts and hospitality brands under one roof. Scroll down for more details. By Sanjiv Bisaria
Asia Pacific is known for having a very strong community of high net worth individuals; and hence, the second edition of International Luxury Travel Market (ILTM) Asia Pacific in Singapore saw a whooping 10% growth! The latest edition hosted 572 buyers from across the region, who participated in 30,422 one-to-one, pre-selected meetings with the world’s latest, most interesting and luxury-travel brands.
A research was presented at the ILTM Asia Pacific 2019 to better understand the millionaire aficionados and further improve the offerings of travel industry appealing to their behaviour, motivations, brand preferences and consumption patterns. Some of the key highlights of this report suggest that 2019 will witness a strong growth in the luxury travel segment. It also suggests that millionaires now travel more for personal growth and better quality of life than for status and recognition.
Apart from that, luxury travelling is now becoming more about local and authentic experiences, than just being about luxury accommodation and transportation. Travel shopping is losing popularity; millionaires are now opting for experiences like city tours, diving, beaches, food, amusement parks, spas and hot springs.
The report commissioned by ILTM and produced by CatchOn, a Finn Partners company, identifies wellness tourism as one of the fastest-growing segments in the wellness economy and Asia Pacific as the fastest growing market for it. The report also identifies three main customer archetypes to drive the future of wellness tourism in Asia. These are — Female Travellers (as from 2013-2023, the global incomes of women will grow from USD 13 trillion to USD 18 trillion), Affluent New Agers (as this group is spending upwards of USD 200k per trip) and Chinese Millennial Millionaires (as wellness is the new status symbol among this segment).
Cathy Feliciano-Chon, Managing Partner of CatchOn explained, “Asian traditions and healing philosophies from yoga and Ayurveda to traditional Chinese medicine’s concept of balance and energy have influenced virtually every aspect of the wellness industry for several decades.”
The growing significance of wellness travel can be understood from the fact that wellness trips now share 6.5% of all tourism trips worldwide. The same is growing at a massive 15.3%, annually. Asia-Pacific now ranks second at around 258 million wellness trips annually and is just behind Europe, according to Global Wellness Institute (GWI).
All these factors suggest travel brands must upgrade their health and wellness proposition to better connect with the new seeking of luxury travellers in Asia Pacific. Plant-based dining, MediSpa and digital detoxing are just some of the expectations of the new wave of luxury consumers across Asia Pacific, and there’s a huge capitalising potential if these needs are catered to.
Related: Luxury Travel Highlights from ILTM Cannes
