Wealthy Americans are no longer content to rent a cabana and sit on the beach with their spouse when travelling abroad. Now they’re bringing along grandma, the parents, the in-laws and maybe even an ex-spouse.
Rich travelers with money to burn want significant experiences that create memories to connect them more with extended family members, say those in the travel industry.
“The super rich are satisfied with nothing less than meaningful cultural experiences that are connected to the local community they are visiting,” said Horst Schulze, co-founder of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and current chairman and CEO of Capella Hotels and Resorts.
The rich are in search of these experiences with multiple generations of family.
“Multigenerational family travel is about collecting photos to put in a family album rather than spending money on the finer things in life,” said Howard Joe, wealth management advisor and senior vice president with Merrill Lynch in Atlanta.
In other words, millionaires and billionaires are placing higher value on closeness and familiarity while vacationing rather than spending money on luxury staples, such as Ferraris, expensive handbags and designer clothing.
“Living longer is one reason that meaningful, multigenerational family travel is on the upswing because of trends in healthcare and the healthier lifestyles people are leading," Joe told Private Wealth.
Healthy and wealthy retiring boomers are also using travel experiences, such as spending a week away at a Dude Ranch, to maintain their relevance among younger relatives.
“Enterprising grandparents are luring family members by planning epic travel experiences that their children and grandchildren cannot resist,” said Henley Vazquez, CEO and co-founder of Passported, a travel agency that specializes in booking family vacations.
For example, Joe’s 67-year-old, high-net-worth client planned a 10-day vacation around the world for her children and grandchildren, during which they participated in history classes about the Roman Empire while visiting Italy.
“The wealthy increasingly want to experience history with their heirs and offering all-expense-paid travel is one way for aging boomers to gather their extended family together and spend time with them,” Joe said.
It’s not just small children that are tagging along, but also in-laws, cousins and even ex-spouses.
For example, media mogul Russell Simmons reportedly travels to St. Barts during the holidays with his girlfriend, two daughters, ex-wife Kimora Lee Simmons and her new husband and two children.
“Up until five years ago, the wealthy traveled as part of a couple, not with extended family, and vacations were not as thought out or pre-planned as they are today,” said Joe.
Another phenomenon contributing to the multigenerational travel trend among luxury travellers is the ambitious millennial who will let nothing get in his or her way.
“They aren't allowing parenthood to slow them down, but are instead incorporating kids into their lifestyle,” Vazquez said.
What appears to the outer world as a selfish impulse to kill two birds with one stone is in reality a way for millennials to bond with their kids and even their parents and grandparents.
“Millennials with limited vacation time want to maximize their time off so that rather than visiting grandma's house they are including the older generation in forays to global destinations,” said Vazquez.
As a result of the influx of family entourages, luxury hotels are having to adapt by offering activities, such as listening to a local story teller talk about how warships sank during a historical battle, attending a class with a local chef on how to cook a traditional dish, climbing a glacier in New Zealand, participating in a jungle walk with a tour guide or learning how to make cocktails with local distillery products, according to Schulze.
“There are increasingly huge selections of these unique and meaningful experiences to choose from at luxury hotels,” Schulze said. “Marble and chandeliers in a luxury hotel room are not enough to keep the rich engaged anymore. They want specific experiences that will connect them and their family members to the food, culture and history of the city or country they are visiting.”
To accommodate large groups of family members that are in different phases of life, the wealthy are often opting for private aviation on a family-owned jet—a mode of transportation previously reserved for business purposes.
“When you fly on a private jet to a vacation destination, there’s less of a challenge bringing along the kids, the stroller, surfing equipment, grandma’s walker, nannies, the family dog and even personal assistants to keep up with the office back home,” said Steve Siebold, the Atlanta-based author of “How Rich People Think.”
