🗝️ The Upgrade | Weekly by Anne Marie Brown
25. Experiential Luxury Travel is the Next Frontier
Travelers -
I’m getting ready to head to Rome on Friday! I’m co-leading our annual poetry retreat with Christi Steyn in Umbria this year. I’ll then spend a week in the Costwolds with my mother-in-law. I can’t wait to bop around to moody pubs and antique stores in little villages with one of my favorite women. I’m excited to have some unstructured time to read Agatha Christie books, write, and take a deep breath as I reflect on the past year.
I’m in desperate need of a break after hosting my daughter’s 8th birthday party, which was Parent Trap themed and a slumber party in which nobody slumbered.
Today’s article arose from several weeks of following recent M&A news in the experiential travel industry, which is essentially my home base. What is all this money flowing into experiences signaling for the travel industry? I’ll bring you along as a hospitality insider for a peek into what’s happening.
This week's Lobby Bar covers ownership and contract fights at Soneva, Sandals, Oheka Castle, and the Beverly Wilshire, plus Aman's first Colorado hotel and a new $44 insurance requirement for Tanzania.
Happy travels,
Anne Marie
🗝️ Pre-Departure — Hospitality Hot Takes
The Business of Experiential Travel
Experiences happen to be my area of expertise. My previous title at Inspirato (eleven years ago) was “Director of Experiences,” and my job was to create and run a portfolio of small group trips, expeditions, chartered cruises, events like the Masters, and custom FIT (free independent travel) trips for members of the luxury travel club.
This is why I find it hilarious that the hospitality industry is only now catching on to how huge an opportunity experiential travel presents.
Experiences have long been hailed as the next frontier of luxury travel, one that no one seems to have figured out how to really figure out how to capitalize on the category.
The problem is, when the industry discusses experiences, everyone seems to be talking about different things. Some mean DMCs (destination management companies) and tour operators, like Abercrombie & Kent. Some mean all-inclusive luxury lodges like White Desert or Clayoquot. Some mean on-property activities at hotels. Others mean OTA (online travel agency) marketplaces like Viator and GetYourGuide.
For years, the luxury status symbol was the Rolex watch, the Birkin, the mid-life crisis Lambo in a ghastly color. Today, keeping up with the Joneses means cocktail conversation about which gorilla trekking lodge you dropped $5k per night at in Rwanda (it was One & Only Gorilla’s Nest for us).
My clients are dragging/bringing their kids and parents along for the ride. Gen X and Millennials are fitter than any previous generation, and the Silver Tsunami is every bit as excited to travel in retirement, so these families want luxury experiences in nature that work for all three generations.
The Data
Virtuoso surveyed 2,485 advisors across more than 50 countries for its 2026 Luxe Report, and 45% of them are seeing more requests for what they call “ultraluxe” travel, where every detail is included, up to full resort buyouts.1,2 Three-generation trips are climbing too, with grandparents pushing grandkids toward hikes and rivers and away from screens.
The population of people with $30 million or more in assets is projected to grow 34% by 2030, which explains a good chunk of the growth at the top end (see my previous articles about the K-shaped economy).3
Why now
Part of it is generational. Millennials and Gen X watched their parents spend decades collecting things (search “millennial inheritance” on Instagram for an idea of what fills my storage unit following the death of my parents), and plenty of them have decided a week in the Amazon gives you memories that a Lladro porcelain collection cannot touch.
Part of it is Instagram, which made certain hotels recognizable on sight (Nihi Sumba, and Giraffe Manor, which I have yet to score a stay at).
Part of it is time. We don’t leave the office at the office the way our Boomer parents did, and we are getting colon cancer, among other fun maladies, at higher rates than any generation before us.4
Wealthy Millennials and Gen X want to “adventure max” the small amount of time they have off while they are still healthy and fit enough to hike the Camino or go gorilla trekking.
Hotels and investors see where the next generation of luxury travelers is headed. A hotel that controls the entire guest experience has a greater chance to wow them and captures a heftier share of wallet, and if the scenery or wildlife inspires rave reviews, it becomes a cult property in its own right.
What exactly IS experiential travel? Where is the money going?
I would define experiential travel as all-inclusive journeys, complete with meals, activities, guides, and luxury accommodations. These experiences can occur on a bespoke, FIT (free independent travel) itinerary put together by a DMC and a travel advisor, they can be on a small group departure by operators like Abercrombie & Kent or Backroads, or they can at a lodge, camp, or hotel.
As I always say in The Upgrade, “follow the money.”
Private equity (PE) is a good leading indicator in travel, because few firms focus on travel and hospitality alone, and PE is buying direct ownership stakes in safari operators. In 2018, TPG’s Rise Fund bought 34% of Wilderness Holdings, the parent of Wilderness Safaris, and FS Investors’ African Wildlife Holdings bought another 24%. Wilderness then became a buyer itself, acquiring Jacada Travel out of administration in 2020 and relaunching it as its own consumer-facing tour operator.5,6,7
PE is also reaching into the ground-operator layer in East Africa. Egeria Private Equity agreed in 2025 to acquire Afrika Invest, the Netherlands-based company behind Tanzania Specialist and Africa Safari Trips, which sells direct to consumers and runs its own guides and vehicles on the ground.8,9
The lodge rollup is also hard to ignore. KSL Capital Partners has been building out an experiential-lodge platform. KSL, who bought my family’s company, Outrigger in 2016, took a majority stake in Baillie Lodges in 2018, folded in Chile’s Tierra Hotels in 2022, and combined both under a new brand, Beckons, this past March, retiring the Baillie Lodges name in the process: nine lodges across Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and Canada, backed by $100 million in recent property investment. CEO Michael Crawford, formerly president of Four Seasons, wants to double the portfolio in three years and has named Africa as a target market.10,11
Auberge Resorts Collection is running a similar play, minus the KSL tie. Auberge sits under Dan Friedkin’s family office, The Friedkin Group, and this year it launched Auberge Safari, bringing nine Tanzania camps and lodges under its brand from Legendary Expeditions, which the Friedkin family already owned, and Chem Chem Safari.12,13
Marriott is doing the Auberge play on a larger scale in Kenya, where it signed The Ritz-Carlton, Masai Mara Safari Camp and JW Marriott Mount Kenya Rhino Reserve Safari Camp under agreements with a local investor group, Lazizi Group.14
That makes two distinct plays: PE firms buying equity in the safari companies themselves (Wilderness and the operators Egeria is after), and hotel groups buying reach into safari through management contracts and brand rollups without owning the real estate (Beckons under KSL, Auberge under the Friedkin family office, and Marriott in Kenya).
What does this mean to you?
I personally think the draw of experiential travel comes from a combination of the following:
a) Wanting to prove something to ourselves (such as hiking up to Machu Picchu or visiting all 7 continents)
b) Experiencing pressure to maximize our limited time off or limited with our children before they fly the nest
c) Seeking to create lasting memories
d) Existential climate dread (I wanted to see the mountain gorillas because so few are left in the wild)
e) Milestone celebrations
f) The desire to decrease the friction involved in accomplishing all of the above
If you are after one of these luxury expedition style travel experiences, these are the places to have on your bucket list that really nail experiential luxury.
Antarctica
White Desert is insanely priced and equally sought after. Its camps take no more than twelve guests each. In case you hate the Drake Passage as much as I do and have beaucoup cash to drop on seeing emperor penguins, White Desert flies you by private Airbus from Cape Town onto its own glacial runway.15
Pricing starts around $71,500 per person for six days, which could also fund an entire school in Africa for a year, so there’s that. I’m not judging.15
I haven’t been, but it’s on my bucket list solely for the audacity of that pricing and because I get seasick.
Africa
Everyone is getting into safaris! I’m a safari addict, and if I were to be reincarnated, I’d like to be a safari camp manager in Botswana. So, let’s start with the safari action we are seeing in the industry.
At the luxury level, safari camps are as posh as any five-star hotel, with incredible meals, a small tent count, and an all-inclusive stay where the lodge guides control the entire experience.
We spent time in January at two Great Plains camps in Kenya, Ol Donyo and Mara Nyika, after gorilla and chimp trekking in Rwanda. Mara Nyika gave us a private vehicle per family, a Masai guide who grew up on the concession before her tribe leased the land to the camp, and more leopard and cheetah sightings in three days than I’ve had anywhere else. They made me a happy camper.
Singita still reigns supreme in the luxury safari market, and it charges the rates to hold that crown: Sasakwa and Sabora at Grumeti in Tanzania, Lebombo on the Mozambique border, Kwitonda next to Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, and Elela, a new camp opening in December in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. It’s the gold standard for a reason, with near 1:1 staff-to-guest ratios and low-volume, high-value tourism that funds anti-poaching and habitat work directly.16
And of course there’s Wilderness and Great Plains, which are as luxurious as AndBeyond across their portfolios, with a heavy emphasis on conservation and experiences beyond seeing animals on a game drive.
Giraffe Manor in Kenya and Mnemba Island in Zanzibar are the Instagram-legible entries, and both are notoriously hard to book, which is its own luxury signal and the bane of my existence as an advisor.
The Himalayas
Shinta Mani Mustang in Nepal took the top spot on Robb Report’s 2026 list of the world’s greatest luxury hotels less than three years after opening. Bill Bensley designed it in the Kali Gandaki River Valley, it has a five-night minimum, and the itinerary folds in high-altitude hikes, monastery visits, and a consultation with a resident practitioner of traditional Tibetan medicine.17
Bhutan’s Amankora lodges operate under the country’s high-value, low-impact tourism policy, which caps volume by design, one of the rare cases where the conservation ethic and luxury positioning line up.
Southeast Asia
Shinta Mani Wild in Cambodia, same architect as Mustang, sits inside a private wildlife reserve in the Cardamom Mountains. Guests zipline into camp. The tents are all-inclusive and butlered, and you can join rangers on active anti-poaching patrols if you want your stay to double as fieldwork. (And no, they don’t entrust you with weapons to take out any poachers you manage to track down!)
Indonesia
Nihi Sumba appears on every major best-of list, Robb Report, Travel + Leisure, and Condé Nast, year after year. It has 2.5 kilometers of private beach, 93% local staffing, and some of the world’s best surfing and diving on the doorstep. You can ride horses on the beach, so I’m sold.18
North America
Amangiri in Utah is the domestic property most of my clients already know and lust after. I should have stayed there when it was less than $3k per night, but hindsight is 20/20.
Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge on Vancouver Island is reachable only by seaplane, helicopter, or boat, inside a UNESCO biosphere reserve on Clayoquot Sound. It has 25 canvas prospector-style tents with heated floors, and this season added nighttime bioluminescence kayaking and a private floating sauna in the Tofino inlets.19
I’m going to try to hit this one up next year if I can stomach the price point, because it’s absolutely gorgeous and has one of my favorite GMs.
Dunton Hot Springs in Colorado is an 1880s mining ghost town, restored shack by shack along the Dolores River between Telluride and Mesa Verde. It has two Michelin Keys, 13 cabins plus one tent, and natural geothermal hot springs, including one hidden inside a teepee.20
South America
Awasi distills the whole trend into one property group. The lodges require a ton of upfront planning and coordination from the travel advisor, but they are super cool. Every villa gets its own guide and its own 4WD, and sorry, football fans, there are no TVs.
Awasi Patagonia: 14 timber-and-glass villas on a private reserve facing Torres del Paine, each with a private wood-fired hot tub looking at the Paine Massif.
Awasi Atacama: a 12-suite adobe lodge in San Pedro de Atacama with some of the clearest night skies on earth.
Awasi Iguazu: 14 stilted villas in the rainforest on the Argentine side of the falls, turning what’s normally a day trip into a three- or four-night stay.
Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica in Peru is the Amazon’s answer to the safari camp. You can canoe at dawn, go wildlife spotting with naturalists while dodging mosquitos the size of B52s, and spend nights on the Madre de Dios River searching for piranhas (while hoping they won’t find you).
Australia
What used to be the Baillie Lodges portfolio, folded into Beckons this year, covers more of this trend within one country than almost any other group.
Silky Oaks Lodge, Daintree, Queensland: treehouse suites over the Mossman River in the world’s oldest rainforest, Gourmet Traveller’s #2 resort in Australia for 2025, First Nations-led Kuku Yalanji experiences.
Longitude 131 Degrees, Uluru (aka Ayers Rock): tented pavilions facing the rock itself, degustation dining under the stars, guided walks with Anangu traditional owners.
Southern Ocean Lodge, Kangaroo Island: rebuilt after the 2020 bushfires, a dramatic clifftop setting.
Capella Lodge, Lord Howe Island: a remote UNESCO World Heritage island with very limited capacity.
New Zealand
Blanket Bay in Glenorchy has thirteen rooms on Lake Wakatipu at the foot of the Humboldt Mountains, and it is a Relais & Chateaux and Virtuoso partner property. It works as a base camp for the Routeburn Track, heli-hiking, jet boating, heli-skiing, and a private dinner in the Wine Cave. I’m obsessed with New Zealand, and this hotel never fails to deliver an extraordinary experience.
Huka Lodge sits on the Waikato River outside Taupō and is part of Beckons. Alan Pye opened it as a trout-fishing camp in 1924, and Queen Elizabeth II visited four times. A roughly NZ$25 million centenary renovation reopened it in March 2025 with a doubled dining room, a new outdoor terrace, and wellness grounds built from huts modeled on the Kiwi bach. I sold Huka Lodge for years to avid fly fishermen and women, and then the rest of the world caught on to how special this place is, even if you’re not an angler.21,22,23
Scotland and England
Gleneagles in Perthshire predates this whole trend and is getting rediscovered because of it. Plenty of guests come for the golf (my husband will be one next summer), and the rest come for the 850-acre estate: falconry, gundog training, off-road driving, salmon fishing on the Tay, and one of the best clay shooting schools in the world. It isn’t all-inclusive, so be prepared to dust off your wallet.24
Estelle Manor in Oxfordshire is building out its experience options to capture more share of wallet. You can take a falconry forest walk, fly fish on Blenheim Palace’s own lake, go off-road in INEOS Grenadiers, or abandon your children at the kids club like we did and bliss out at the Eynsham Baths, a Roman-inspired thermal spa.
At sea
The same logic is showing up on the water with Explora Journeys and the yacht lines from Ritz-Carlton, Aman, Orient Express, and Four Seasons. UHNW clients who charter actual yachts get offended when you call these vessels “yachts,” so perhaps we should call them micro luxury cruises. The jury is still out about how well these capital-intensive projects have turned out for their financial backers. I think the most successful one will be those who actually own the entire experience. I’m not sold on the idea of outsourcing shore excursions - and the feedback from several of these ships have shown that those haven’t always been handled in the best way.
TLDR
If you read The Upgrade, you are a luxury traveler, a hospitality industry insider, or a fellow advisor. Maybe you are one of my friends or family members that I bribed to join my paid tier because writing is my first love and there’s something intoxicating about being paid to do it.
As a former Director of Experiences who is now, as I like to think, Master of Experiences, I love seeing the hospitality industry finally take luxury nature-based travel seriously. I’ve been saying for years that the smartest hotels will copy the African safari lodge model and capture more of their guests’ wallet and emotional experience, instead of hoping they book a mediocre-but-exorbitantly priced day-boat charter through the concierge.
He who dies with the most toys still dies. She who takes her children on an expedition without having to sleep on the ground leaves a legacy of memories, and maybe a few mosquito bites.
🗝️The Lobby Bar
Hospitality updates, promotions, gossip, and the occasional pun
A Singapore court cut Steele’s Soneva debt from 18% to 15% and set a November 15 start for a sale. Steele, the KSL Capital and GIC vehicle that holds about 74.9% of the group, issued up to $37 million of debt securities in August 2025 at 18% compounding with a 2x payout on exit, and the judge found the group needed far less and that Steele did not seriously look for other lenders. The court removed the 2x term, declined founder Sonu Shivdasani’s request for a buyout, and told Steele to begin the sale process both sides agreed to in 2025 by November 15 unless it can show that date is impracticable. (Singapore International Commercial Court)
Royal Caribbean is buying half of Sandals and Beaches for about $3 billion. Guess you could call it a deal with…real sole.
The deal values the resort business at roughly 10 times forward EBITDA and is expected to close in early 2027, with Sandals executive chairman Adam Stewart keeping a leadership role in the joint venture. Existing reservations and loyalty programs continue as usual. (Yahoo Finance)
Oheka Castle goes to bankruptcy auction October 27. The Long Island wedding estate from Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” video is selling with its hotel, event spaces, and condo development rights, and its website still advertises rooms and weddings until then. (LongIsland.com)
The Beverly Wilshire is suing a sports travel company over 300 World Cup rooms. The hotel alleges Jet Set Sports contracted the rooms for six nights at $594,000 before taxes, then told the hotel on January 23 to release them, and says it could not resell any. It is asking for $636,000, and none of it has been decided in court. (California Post)
Aman is building its first Colorado hotel at the base of Aspen Mountain. A construction sequencing plan finalized July 31 puts more than four years of work ahead for Aman Aspen, a hotel with four full-ownership residences, and the neighboring Chalet Alpina, with about three years before the new lift starts spinning. (Aspen Journalism)
Tanzania now requires $44 travel insurance for foreign visitors to the mainland. The policy comes from the National Insurance Corporation, covers emergency medical care, evacuation, repatriation, and lost luggage for up to 92 days, and visitors without one can be denied entry. Zanzibar has its own separate policy at the same price, and Kenya added a similar rule in July. (Citizen Digital)
Sources
1. Virtuoso, 2026 Luxe Report, October 2025
2. Seatrade Cruise News, Virtuoso 2026 trends, October 7, 2025
3. Altrata, World Ultra Wealth Report 2026, June 2026
4. ecancer, American Cancer Society colorectal study, February 2017
5. Tourism Update, Wilderness Holdings stake sale, July 2018
6. Travel Weekly UK, Jacada revived by Wilderness, 2020
7. Egeria, Afrika Invest acquisition, October 2, 2025
8. PitchBook, Tanzania Specialist profile
9. Travel Weekly, Beckons launch, March 11, 2026
10. Luxury Travel Advisor, Beckons launch, March 11, 2026
11. Auberge Safari, Travel Professionals FAQ, May 2026
12. Hotel Online, Marriott and Lazizi Group, 2025
13. Luxury Travel Advisor, White Desert Whichaway upgrades, 2025
14. Aspire, Singita Elela opening date, 2026
15. Travel Noire, Robb Report 2026 greatest hotels, 2026
16. NIHI Sumba, 2026 factsheet
17. Beckons, Clayoquot 2026 season release, May 26, 2026
18. MICHELIN Guide, Dunton Hot Springs
19. Luxury Travel, Huka Lodge renovation plans, August 1, 2024
20. Gourmet Traveller, Huka Lodge reopening, 2025
What feels most interesting here is when “experiential” stops being a programming layer and becomes the operating model itself.
The safari lodge model works because accommodation, food, guides, activities and place aren’t experienced as separate products. They’re designed as one journey.
That creates an interesting advantage beyond share of wallet: coherence.
Perhaps the strongest experiential hotels won’t be the ones offering the longest activity menu, but the ones where every part of the stay seems to belong to the same reason for being there.
Really enjoyed this. From the ground-operator side in Morocco, the three-generation trend is the biggest change I see: families want the Sahara to work for grandparents and kids at once, which means slower pacing and fewer hotel changes. Are you seeing Morocco come up as a closer alternative to safari for those families?