Luxury – a gourmet taste of nature

Luxury. What is it really? To most traveling on a vacation and staying in a finely appointed villa or Presidential Suite in a resort, it calls to mind high count Egyptian cotton sheets on a sumptuous bed within an expansive room, replete with amenities that leave nothing to be desired. Or, maybe being able to savor a $1,000 tequila lollypop enhanced with 24 ct. gold flecks. Well, yes, that is luxury, maybe bordering on ostentatious, and something that every high end traveler would certainly appreciate.
But, a suite or villa with those qualities could be anywhere, and so you step outside of your protected environment and you could be in Manhattan, Los Angeles or Cairo. Where is your “luxury” then, outside of your opulent pad? Therein, to me, lies the greater quest – the luxury of a gourmet taste of nature. Let me explain.
I remember a few years back visiting Cartagena, Colombia and staying at a fairly well appointed room in a high rise on the beach. Well, it really wasn’t on the beach; it was just across the highway from the beach. I remember getting up early one morning and going for a walk on the beach. Vendors were already issuing reservation tickets for a lounge chair with sun shading umbrellas. Reservations! The beach was ubiquitous with furniture, and there was little space for anything else, except to walk in a small area of the beach where the tide zone was. This is paradise?
Not from my awareness of traveling around Costa Rica, where except for a few crowded beaches like Jaco, Tamarindo and Manuel Antonio at certain times of the year, basically for most beaches, there are always more vast and endless expanses of sand than people. For my tastes, I like that.
So for me, within Costa Rica, the quintessential “gourmet nature” would be a place I recently visited again – the Casa Oceano beachfront villa. No, I’m not going to describe to you the amenities of the villa, except to say it deserves that term. What I want to talk about is having the good fortune to wake up very early one morning on my last visit and experience a blood red dawn from my bedroom window as the sun was still buried beneath the horizon. Fighting off an impulse to crawl back into bed, I mustered up enough courage to grab my Nikon and walk downstairs. By that time, the opening scene of the day had gone from crimson to deep orange. Bleary eyed, and without even my first morning cup of coffee, I looked across the beachfront infinity pool and snapped this picture.

Now, this is what life is about! I wouldn’t want to get up this early to experience it each day! But for the moment, I was in awe and transfixed. About 15 minutes later as the sun rose, I took this picture:

Later on, the staff arrived and set up the lounge chairs on the sun deck. Now, isn’t this a gourmet taste of nature for a beach lover – right on the beach, not on the other side of the road from the beach, or on a bluff overlooking the beach with no access. From the sun deck, it’s just twelve steps to the sand.
The other benefit of enjoying this gourmet taste of nature is that it’s private. Casa Oceano is located within the Tango Mar Beach Resort – a 125 acre private reserve. It is seldom you will even see anyone on the beach. Casa Oceano on the Tango Mar beach Ah, nature and privacy!
In short, of course when traveling on business, we may not be able to dictate the taste of nature outside of our deluxe accommodations. But, when traveling for pleasure, whether in a condo or villa on the ski slopes of Dear Valley or Aspen, or on a tropical escape, don’t forget to look closely for the real luxury – a gourmet taste of nature.

Luxury travel trends in 2013

 

 

With 2013 now well and truly underway, what can we expect the year to bring as far as luxury tourism is concerned? We got in touch with three members of the travel industry – all Directors at their respective travel businesses – and asked them what they each anticipated the year would bring. Here’s what they had to say:

“We are seeing strong growth in private and custom tour requests from young, successful families. Clients in their early 30s and 40s are planning adventurous Ireland trips for the extended family including grandparents, young children and even babies. They want their children to have authentic cultural experiences whilst retaining their own travel freedom. Private touring provides the independence they want with the structure and local insight that makes for a fantastic tour. For 2013, we are also seeing a trend towards ‘value based luxury’ – clients opting for smaller, boutique accommodations that can reduce overall costs by 20-25%.” Andrew Carr, Managing Director, Kennedy & Carr Ireland Travel.
“As the world moves ever faster there is an even greater need to escape the hurly burly; we see clients wanting to get more off the beaten track to find space and authentic experiences in 2013 and to take advantage of more personal experiences – tailor made expert advice, premium travel by air and rail and smaller upmarket character hotels along with smaller luxury cruise ships. We expect less well known destinations to secure a firmer place in 2013 as true journeys of discovery – places such as Namibia, Malawi, Burma, Cambodia, Mongolia, Oman and Colombia. Within the established favourites we expect to see more travel beyond the icons and the expected, as people explore ‘new’ parts of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA and Morocco, and seek out new experiences such as the northern lights, private safaris and the last great frontiers such as Antarctica. As always exchange rates and safety will be key underlying considerations for our travellers, so expect specialist cruising to continue to grow, along with escorted tours, and US dollar denominated destinations to perform well. Our travellers all enjoy the research and planning stages of their trips, and given the plethora of sources they will rely even more on their trusted travel partners, the companies who genuinely know the destinations and who are passionate about their role in making dreams come true. Our brand essence at WEXAS is “serious travel personalised” which we believe is exactly what the luxury traveller wants in 2013. Steve Allen, Managing Director, WEXAS Tailor-made Travel
“We are definitely experiencing an increase in guests wanting a ‘truly memorable stay’ with a much more substantial itinerary than a simple self-catered house hire and we have seen the demand for fully catered and staffed breaks increase. Clients are also tailoring their stays more with luxury activities and country pursuits such as clay shooting or archery in a sunny English garden, private cheese and wine tasting sessions or an exciting murder mystery evening.

First-class flying

The Lufthansa 747-8I takes to the skies and does not fail to impress
Two thousand and twelve has been an important year for German carrier Lufthansa’s premium product and service offering, with the start of a gradual roll-out of a new Business Class cabin across the fleet, and the receipt in May of the first of several new aircraft – Boeing’s new 747-8 Intercontinental.
In the seven months since Lufthansa brought the 747-8I into commercial service as the launch customer, the aircraft has received rave reviews, from both within the industry and also premium class passengers traveling between Frankfurt and Washington DC, Los Angeles, New Delhi and Bangalore.


A new level of flying on board Lufthansa’s First Class cabin

In early November, TTN was invited by Lufthansa to experience the 747-8I from Frankfurt to Washington, and to see whether the Queen of the Skies lived up to the considerable hype of the marketing brochures – which quoted one Boeing spokesman as saying that when passengers enter the 747-8 “they will notice that they are in a completely new aircraft and will experience a new kind of flying”.
Immediately upon embarkation, the 747-8I does feel different to its closest cousin, the 747-400. Subtly at first, the aircraft quickly begins to come into its own with a distinctive style and ambience.
Such an observation is, perhaps, hardly surprising. Boeing says it hired architects and psychologists when developing the interiors, and the results are very effective.
The sense of space in both First and Business Class cabins, particularly compared to the 747-400, is striking, thanks to clever lighting effects and what Boeing says is a more ‘open architecture’. 

     Guests can indulge in a quick pre-flight massage at the First Class Spa                                                                                     

Furthermore, the First Class cabin on the 747-8I is cocooned in the nose section of the main deck – eight seats, each convertible into a lie-flat bed just over two metres long and 80 cm wide, cocooned in what Lufthansa claims is the world’s quietest First Class in the air, and avoiding through traffic from other cabins on the ground too. So secluded is the cabin, which features outer skin insulation, sound-absorbing curtains and sound-deadening material in the floors – that Boeing calls it a ‘jet in a jet’.
Joseph Ozimek, Boeing’s vice president of sales and marketing and product marketing for the 747-8I, says the extraordinarily quiet First Class section is due primarily to its location.

The overhead of the First Class cabin is shielded from boundary layer noise [the noise of air rushing over the external surface of the plane] because that is where the upper deck is. And the lower deck is where the cargo is, so you only get boundary layer noise from the side,” he explains.
Unlike its Middle East rival Emirates, which has pioneered private suites in First Class, Lufthansa has opted for a more conventional fit out. Carsten Schaeffer, the airline’s vice president, sales and services for Southeast Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Pakistan, says this was a conscious decision made based on customer feedback.
“Our customers asked for bigger washrooms in First Class, and we provided that,” he says. “They [the passengers] clearly said they did not want a shower, because the challenge with a shower is that everybody wants to take one before arrival – and how do you manage that without queues?

We provide lounges in Frankfurt where you can shower in a clean, safe and comfortable environment. We found that more valuable, and that’s also the feedback we received from our customers,” he adds.The lounges in Frankfurt Airport, not least the exquisite and exclusive Lufthansa First Class Terminal – a 1,800 sq m haven at the hectic European transit hub – certainly do provide the highest levels of luxury and comfort, from bedrooms, a spa and relaxation areas to a la carte fine dining and fully equipped office units.
Yet it is the Terminal’s practical convenience – passengers can, for example, drive right up to the front door, have their car valet parked or rental car returned, and be greeted seconds later by a personal assistant to complete check-in and security formalities, which is arguably its most valuable attributes, further enhanced by personalised limousine transfer service straight to the door of the aircraft.
Schaeffer insists that achieving ‘seamless’ service throughout the entire First Class travel experience is a core goal for the airline.
“First Class prices are high so it is all about the product, both on board and on the ground. It is important to have a consistent, seamless offering for First Class passengers from pre- to post-flight,” he explains. “We see from the double digit growth we have in First Class travel that this strategy is proving successful,” he adds.
Taken together, the new 747-8I and First Class Terminal at Frankfurt are a very compelling proposition for the discerning traveller. With more 747-8Is to be delivered through 2013, even more passengers will experience the steadily growing legend in the near future.
And while there is no word from Lufthansa on when or if the new plane will serve Middle East routes, in our opinion the First Class product and service is well worth experiencing sooner rather than later.

(Top to Bottom) On board the 747-8I are spacious washrooms, two-meter long lie-flat beds and a service quality that is second to none