Cox and Kings Travel Announces Its Top 10 Trends for 2011 – Luxury Villa Rentals Conspicuously Absent.Recently, Thomas Stanley, the COO of the well established Cox and Kings travel company, released what he believes to be the ten hottest trends in luxury travel going into 2011. Cox and Kings have been around for awhile, about 250 years to be exact, so when they make a proclamation those in the travel industry usually listen. Of course, whether or not these predictions are entirely accurate remains open to debate. While the list cites the Revival of Tour Groups as one of the ten, and a way to offset costs and make luxury travel in the current economy more affordable, it seems that a whole segment of the luxury travel market not looking to cut costs is forgotten when considering such a trend.
According to Cox and Kings, another of the luxury travel trends for 2011 is Multi-Destination Vacations — visiting two countries or cities in the same trip. If you’re hoping for a multi-destination getaway to, say, Marbella and then St. Tropez, what better option that booking a luxury villa rental at each stop? The luxury villa option gives you opulence, privacy and convenience all wrapped up in one package. The eight remaining Cox and Kings travel trend predictions include:
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Cultural Travel – Stanley predicts that luxury travelers in 2011 will not just be looking for beautiful beaches or great shopping, but “more meaningful interactions with local cultures” as well as outings that center upon local artisans and experts in varied fields. What better base for such a vacation than a luxury villa rental, as opposed to a tourist-centric hotel, where you can live among the locals?
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Learning Vacations – In the same vein as cultural travel, learning vacations are “about seeing, not doing…People want to come away with a strong emotional connection with a destination and bring back more than just memories from a vacation.”
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Experiential Family Travel – According to Stanley, “There is a desire from parents to expose their children to the cultures and lifestyles of the regions that they are visiting. Families want to expand their horizons and experience locations on another level.”
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One of a Kind, Specialty Travel Experiences – With this trend, we’re seeing that, once again, the world’s most exclusive destinations are back on the map. While for a time luxury travelers were experimenting with new destinations, 2010 has seen the reemergence of travel destinations that can cater to the traveler’s special whims.
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Resurgence of Travel Experts – “DIY” has come to dominate the travel industry for quite some time now, thanks to the emergence of the Internet. However, luxury travelers are beginning to cede control of their luxury vacation planning to the experts once again.
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When reading through Stanley’s predictions, one has to wonder why private villas, a staple of any truly luxurious vacation, were left off the list, especially when they facilitate some of the other trends so well. For those who remain able to take vacations in the style that they’ve always been accustomed to, it seems that a stay at a private luxury villa rental, with round-the-clock five-star VillaHotel service to boot, would be a much more popular and lavish way to travel among te traveling elite. Moreover, the luxury villa rental vacation experience is perfectly suited to a getaway centered on some of the other trends outlined by Cox and Kings, namely contemporary cultural travel, multi-destination vacations, learning vacations, and the experimental family travel. Staying in a luxury villa rental among the locals, rather than a hotel in a tourist-centric zone, seems a much better way to enjoy any of the above types of vacations. Perhaps luxury rental villas have become so engrained in the experiences of the luxury traveler that they can no longer be cited as a trend, but rather the height of indulgence expected from these sorts of vacations.
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Tags: Cox and Kings, Luxury Travel Trends 2011, luxury villa rentals, Thomas Stanley
