– Interview with Luca Franco CEO and Founder of Luxury Frontiers
Luxury Frontiers was founded in 2011 out of the passion for experiential travel and the desire to develop products and services which enrich people’s lives. From day one, the team sought to create a business which exalted—and was sensitive to—the natural environment while also delivering substantial value to clients and capitalizing on the experiential travel movement.
How has the luxury traveller evolved and what are they looking for?
Covering the travel and glamping industries, I am sure you are very familiar with the exponential rise in experiential travel and hospitality. This shift in consumer demand away from collecting material possessions and towards collecting life-altering, perspective-changing experiences is affecting the industry the world over, and this is definitely applied to the luxury segment. In fact, you can look at the Boston Consulting Group study which was done in 2014, whose findings estimated the size of the luxury travel market to be $460 billion with 11% annual growth. This amount exceeded the global spending on all personal luxury goods, which was valued at $390 billion by comparison (also with 11% annual growth). BCG concluded that luxury is shifting away from “having” to “being” or “doing” – in other words, moving from luxury as a product to luxury as an experience.
What are your top tips for travel trends in 2019 and beyond?
Wellness is particularly having a moment in 2019. I recently read the 2019 Global Wellness Trends Report by the Global Wellness Summit and some comments really struck me. For example, beyond spa treatments, organic food offerings, and fitness offerings, the “nature economy is booming.” The report explained that the hospitality industry is capitalizing on their often-beautiful nature locations to offer more well-rounded outdoor programming because there is such a demand by travellers to connect to nature in their destinations. Connection to nature has become such an integral part of hospitality’s interpretation of wellness offerings, which is really exciting for us at Luxury Frontiers.
Where do you think the demand for “glamping” comes from and what does this mean for experiential travel?
I think what some refer to as “glamping” has roots in the African (and Indian) safari experience, which is a centuries-old art form. In my opinion, safari is the quintessential experiential adventure—guests are truly immersed in wilderness; they have close encounters with wildlife and nature; they learn about the world around them, and they are engaged 24/7; they have the space to be mindful and to focus on their wellness. However, what Luxury Frontiers realized a few years ago is that this experience can be curated in locations all over the world, in the world’s various precious and breath-taking nature areas—from the Himalayas in Bhutan to the canyons in the American Southwest and the rainforests in Central America. This quintessential experiential adventure—which is an elevated form of hospitality in nature settings—can potentially spread to every corner of the world.
If more and more people want experiential, nature-based travel experiences, offering such here in North and South America means i) accessibility to a wider demographic of travellers (for example, those who cannot afford African safaris or are adverse to long-haul travel) and ii) deeper penetration of existing segments (North American adventure travellers are likely to travel within the Americas more often than to Africa for safari). This means there is increasing demand to be met by the industry, and this helps explain why more safari-style camps which some call “glamping” are opening up outside Africa and India.
What is the best way for remote resorts to attract experiential travellers? What does this mean for hospitality and sustainability?
JLL Real Views has noted that, “there’s certainly been a move away from traditional bricks…guests still want many creature comforts like comfortable bedding, fine dining and hot showers but they want them in a different type of setting that makes for a unique and memorable trip.”
This is where your unique structures like tented suites can come in. For example, a remote offering in South Africa we recently redesigned—Jock Safari Lodge—has structures with brick-and-mortar walls and thatch roofs, but they asked us to integrate tented components into the guest experience. We did this by introducing an arrival tent to the main area of the lodge, as well as an outdoor sala tent on the outdoor deck of each guest room.
There’s also the marketing value in sustainable design, and as supporting sustainable efforts becomes more important in consumers’ purchase decisions, hospitality will need to keep up. The same JLL Real Views article also mentions, “the use of raw materials such as wood and clay is not just aesthetic, with environmental impact also a factor. Some countries are moving towards hotel concepts which minimize the effect on the very landscape many tourists are there to visit.” This is where Luxury Frontiers excels—sustainable designs and lightweight tented structures which also quench travellers’ thirst for experiential travel.
A genuine adventure-seeker, Luca Franco’s true passion lies in experiential travel. In 2011, he founded Luxury Frontiers after identifying the growing consumer demand for experiential lodging as well as environmentally and socially responsible tourism.
Having worked with Aman, Four Seasons, One&Only, Six Senses and Belmond, among others, Luxury Frontiers is a leading international expert in the design and development of high-end adventure eco-lodges, resorts and camps. Luxury Frontiers designs experiential lodging concepts, allowing its clients to quickly and efficiently increase returns from underutilized land and boost the public profiles of their properties.
Prior to forming Luxury Frontiers, Luca was owner of LLPI, an international advisory and management company servicing developers and investors in luxury mixed-use hotels and resorts, and he was an equity partner with Strategic Hotels and Resorts. Luca earned his engineering degree from Pavia University, Italy and was subsequently an architect for the Icehotel in Sweden.
