Have you ever gone shopping and looked at a product, whether a piece of clothing or consumable goods, and scratched your head over why “Brand X” is more expensive than “Brand Y” even though the quality and productivity is the same? Do you reach out and buy Gucci or Coach or do you go without the label or the status symbol? Do you pay less to be more practical? The answer for you is, it doesn’t matter.
Your affluent clients, however, will go for the designer label every time. They will “buy up” as long as they don’t sacrifice quality. They will buy that rare designer stuff because no one else has it. Have you ever been to an evening gala and seen two women with the same dress? I have, and you could have thought the world had ended for both of them.
So take the purchasing habits of the rich and put a travel spin on it. Create what I call, “designer travel.” Take your very favorite personal vacation itinerary and add your personal touches to it, including dinner reservations at an amazing restaurant that may not be on your client’s radar. Add a personal guide and ensure that it is the same guide you had on your own amazing experience. Include breakfast in bed. Request that your guests are greeted by name at every venue they attend; this is the single most important detail. Anytime guests are greeted by name they feel like they are on top of the world. Suddenly your favorite itinerary is a “designer itinerary” and the more you dress it up, the more you can charge.
Recently, I attended Valerie Wilson Travel’s 30th Anniversary Gala and I’m shown here with the VWT trio that makes this amazing company tick. Valerie Wilson Travel sells a lot of one-of-a-kind designer travel. One that recently caught my attention was the “Ultimate Golf Experience.” It included business class airline tickets, golf and a stay at Gleneagles with evening activities that included scotch tastings in distilleries usually not open to the general public. Jenifer Wilson-Buttigieg designed this from her personal experiences, right down to requesting only the best caddies who can navigate the course. Now that’s designer travel.
And in case you’re wondering, at the Valerie Wilson Travel Anniversary Gala, no same-dress faux-pas occurred and the beautiful evening had “high-end designer” written all over it.