Organisers of Luxperience have deemed this year’s event the most successful yet, with over 1000 visitors and a year-on-year growth trend since its inception.
In its fourth year, Luxperience is Australasia’s leading luxury and experiential travel trade exhibition and this year’s forum attracted 284 exhibitors from around the world, an increase of 25% on last year.
Speaking to Travel Weekly, director Helen Logas said this year was a high point for the event.
“It was the best Luxperience to date without a doubt,” she said.
“The aim of Luxperience is to have people who are the decision makers, and a lot of people said we did that.”
“We have a company motto that stands to service everything, and we make sure customers are very well looked after. We need to keep it fresh.”
And to keep things fresh, Logas said a number of new initiatives received positive feedback from attendees.
“We hosted the gala awards for the first time this year and they were very well received,” she said.
“We also launched Events by Luxperience, which targets corporates specifically with the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events market.”
Logas also told Travel Weekly that travellers prefer “face to face connection when booking travel”, and that this is something Luxperience “can definitely provide.”
“There is a trend to move away from booking online,” she said.
“People who book high end, experiential travel book with an agent.”
In terms of the importance of luxury travel products, Logas also said it comes down to “experience and how it affects you personally.”
“I believe luxury is the fast growing market in travel.”
“Probably the biggest trend in luxury at the moment is experiential, things that are transformative to the individual.
“It’s no superficial, but something that makes you think about how fortunate you are.
“The lodges of Australia and NZ have got it right – you’re in the middle of nowhere but you go home to these beautiful lodges.”
“Luxury travel has altered – people aren’t just looking for high class anymore.”
Logas said this year’s Luxperience hosted over 400 buyers from around the world, with 70% of this number representing new buyers.
“People say you see the same old, and we were very aware of this,” Logas added, saying “targeting quality product” was at the heart of the success of Luxperience.
“We focus on unique product. We get a lot of people wanting to exhibit and we said no because it wasn’t up to standard.”
