2023-09-27 08:07:36
The luxury tour operators are starting the 2023/2024 winter season with significantly increased programs. The providers explain that once-in-a-lifetime experiences, tours in small groups and exotic destinations are particularly in demand. While the islands in the Indian Ocean were weak for some, the Maldives, for example, were the top destination for Dertour Deluxe alongside the Emirates, according to Mike Lehmann, Director of Dertour Deluxe.
His colleagues attribute the low demand to the price development. This is drastic, says Edeltravel managing director Till Brunecker: “Unfortunately, many destinations, including the Indian Ocean, are a little inconsistent in their pricing. After the houses were fully booked in recent years, the prices were set too high and now we have to counteract this with big specials.”
Christian Böll, Managing Director of Windrose Finest Travel, adds: “Unfortunately, there will also be price increases in 2024. This is particularly noticeable in flight and transport logistics. But the hotel industry also has to pass on the increased fixed and personnel costs to its prices.”
Airtours: Travel to Alaska, South Africa or Mexico
The TUI luxury brand Airtours has the US state of Alaska in its program for the first time. The privately guided, nine-day round trip “Exclusive Adventure Alaska” leads from Anchorage to Fairbanks to calving glaciers and impressive mountains.
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A new adventure tour with an optional bathing extension awaits guests in Mexico. “In the Realm of the Gods – Private Tour through Mexico” connects Mexico City with the historical sites in the east of the country in 15 days. Guests stay in individual boutique hotels and visit the pyramids in Teotihuacan, the ruined city of Palenque and Uxmal, and the Mayan archaeological site of Chichén Itzá. Also included is a boat trip through the Sumidero Canyon and the Celestún mangrove area. The journey ends on the small island of Holbox.
On the island of Holbox, holidaymakers can reflect on their impressions of the Mexico tour
Quelle: picture alliance/Westend61/David Santiago Garcia
If you want to stay longer, you can do so, for example, in the new adult hotel “Secrets Playa Blanca Costa Mujeres”. With “Unlimited Luxury”, everything is included – from the eight restaurants to catamaran and kayak trips to cooking courses, tequila and wine tastings.
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New to South Africa is the “Brookdale Estate” in the Paarl Winelands, northeast of Cape Town. The main house includes five suites, plus the separate Vineyard Suite. Guests can also book the entire property with private chef, wine cellar and bistro.
At sea, Airtours is making it possible to book a seven-day luxury cruise on the new “Silver Nova” from San Juan to Barbados. The cruise ship is equipped with hybrid technology that uses fuel cells and produces no local emissions in the port. There are 364 suites for a maximum of 728 guests, nine restaurants and eleven bars on board.
Price example: Airtours round trip Alaska, 9 days in exclusive hotels and lodges with daily expert tour guide costs from Anchorage to Fairbanks from 8750 euros per person, airtours.de.
Dertour Deluxe: Now also Ireland and Panama in the program
Dertour Deluxe has expanded the four annual programs “North & Central Europe”, “Caribbean, Central & South America”, “Orient & Indian Ocean” and “Asia & Oceania”. New destinations include Ireland, Panama, Colombia and Micronesia. The hotel selection has also been increased in many holiday destinations, such as Austria, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Thailand, Indonesia, Qatar as well as the Seychelles and the Maldives.
Dertour Deluxe is launching in Ireland with the two eight-day rental car tours “Experience Ireland’s Beauty” and “Northern Ireland Exclusive”. There are twelve exclusive hotels in the hotel portfolio, including the “Ashford Castle Hotel & Country Estate” in Cong, which is located in a 13th century castle. Three private excursions, including a helicopter flight over the southern part of the Ring of Kerry and to the Skellig Islands, complete the offer.
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Colombia and Panama are new to the Caribbean, Central and South America catalog. In Panama, guests stay at the “Isla Palenque Resort” on the private island of the same name in the Gulf of Chiriquí on the Pacific coast. The Nayara Bocas del Toro eco-retreat is located on the island of Frangipani in the Bocas del Toro archipelago, close to the border with Costa Rica. It has 34 residential units, including 16 overwater villas and two treehouses. The program also includes two city hotels in Panama City: the hotel “La Compañia” and the “Sofitel Legend Casco Viejo” in the old town.
In Colombia, the four-season hotel “Casa Medina Bogotá” in a listed building in the middle of the capital complements the portfolio. New in Cartagena on the Caribbean coast is the “Casa San Augustin” and on the island of Barú the “Las Islas Barú”. In Mexico, the hotel program was expanded to include “The St. Regis Mexico City” and three hotels in the Los Cabos region. The “Cayo Levantado Resort” is new in the Dominican Republic.
During an eight-day cruise on a catamaran, vacationers can explore the beautiful island world of Palau
Quelle: Getty Images/Beth Watson
The three new hotels “The St. Regis Doha”, “Park Hyatt Doha” and “The Chedi Katara” will be added in Qatar. In the Seychelles, the “Kempinski Seychelles Resort” complements the program, and in the Maldives, Dertour Deluxe offers five new resorts, including the “Ozen Reserve Bolifushi”.
Micronesia joins the Oceania portfolio for the first time with an eight-day cruise on the Four Seasons Explorer catamaran. On board, a maximum of 22 guests will discover the island world of Palau. In Australia, “Capella Sydney” completes Dertour Deluxe’s hotel offering. And in Asia, seven new hotels complement the portfolio, including the “Anantara Koh Yao Yai” in Thailand.
Price example: Dertour Deluxe rental car tour from/to Dublin, 7 nights with breakfast, 2599 euros per person in a double room. The rental car is not included in the price, dertour.de/deluxe.
Windrose: New cruises and private tours
Windrose Finest Travel has been offering luxury trips since 1973, and since 2017 under the umbrella of the Munich travel group FTI Touristik. The new additions in winter include a Spitsbergen cruise with Quark Expeditions, the Lifestyle gourmet trip “The Taste of Latin America”, the study trip “Culture & Culinary in the Northern Andes” and Lifestyle group trips to Liguria, Scotland, Iceland and Namibia.
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Private tours lead, for example, to Botswana, Rwanda & Kenya, Alaska, Canada, New Orleans, Saudi Arabia, Montenegro and Apulia. In addition, the city trip portfolio in Europe has been expanded, including Porto. And New Year’s Eve trips can be booked both as group and private trips.
In the ship travel section, two cruises with new ships are on the program: Egypt with the “Dahabiya”, which was completed this year, and a visit to the Valley of the Whales, as well as “The Secrets of the Mekong” on board the “Anouvong”. The first trip starts in October, and there will be a new route in 2024.
The boat trip in Egypt also includes a visit to the Valley of the Whales, where many fossils can be admired
Quelle: picture alliance/ZUMAPRESS.com/Zhao Dingzhe
Several new additions have been added to the Finest Places, including the Four Seasons Resort The Nam Hai in Hoi An, Vietnam, and the Waldorf Astoria Seychelles on Platte Island, opening in 2024. In the “Private Experiences” area, the portfolio includes new villas, for example in Mallorca and St. Barth, as well as yachts in the Balearic Islands and Croatia.
Price example: Round trip “The Secrets of the Mekong” from Windrose Finest Travel, 13 days, including 7 nights on board the “Anouvong”, from 12,290 euros per person in a double room, windrose.de.
Edeltravel: Lodges in Scandinavia
The Düsseldorf operator Edeltravel is starting the 2023/2024 winter season with a mix of offers in classic regions. These include stays at the “Grace La Margna” hotel in St. Moritz and in Scandinavian lodges.
Otherwise, customers were looking for further distances, long-distance destinations and complex round trips were in demand – “everything outside of the classic trips that our customers have always been able to take,” explains managing director Till Brunecker. “For some of them, the pandemic was a wake-up call to take advantage of the times when ‘anything goes’ and now make these more complex trips to more exotic destinations and not always just the classics in Europe or outside.”
Price example: Edeltravel round trip “Of arctic excursions and winter surfing” in Norway, 11 days from Oslo, via Tromsø and to the Lofoten, from 12,620 euros per person, edel.travel.
Luxury Dreams: Winter sports classics in the mountains
Luxury Dreams, the Berlin-based operator of lifestyle and luxury travel, also takes customers to classic winter sports resorts in Europe in winter, including St. Moritz, Davos, Zermatt, Kitzbühel and Sölden, Val d’Isere and Cortina. The program also includes smaller destinations such as Zürs in Austria, Lenzerheide in Switzerland and Baqueira-Beret in Spain.
“Due to the good dollar exchange rate, we also see opportunities for destination areas in the USA and Canada with heli-skiing adventures such as Aspen, Beaver Creek and Banff-Lake Louise as well as with authentic wildlife experiences in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Newfoundland & Labrador and Nunavut and Alberta as well as in Quebec,” reports managing director Michael Kern.
Aspen in the USA makes skiers’ hearts beat faster
Source: Getty Images/Image Source/Jakob Helbig
The first hotels such as “Nujuma, a Ritz Carlton Reserve” and the “Six Senses Southern Dunes” in the Red Sea Project desert resort in Saudi Arabia are expected to be available for booking from December.
In the Caribbean, Anguilla and St. Barth can be combined with the private jet, and there are exclusive offers on the Cayman Islands and Grenada. Together with the experts for personality development, Franziska Gausepohl and Dominik Klimmek, the first lifestyle workshop “Time of my Life” is also on the program.
Attika Premium: Longer season in Greece
Attika Premium, the luxury brand of the Greece specialist Attika Reisen, has expanded its hotel offering in Cyprus to include the “E-Hotel Spa & Resort” and the “Filokypros Character House”. “In Greece, the trend is to extend the summer program into the winter,” explains sales manager Christiane Pilz.
There are more offers in November 2023 and March 2024, especially for Crete and Rhodes. For a city trip to Athens, hotels in all categories, but also private accommodation outside the main travel season, can be booked. And for a long-term vacation on Crete, private accommodation and holiday homes are available.
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