Affluent travelers still globe-trotting despite economy

WRITER F. Scott Fitzgerald had a point. The very rich are different from you and me. And perhaps never more so than when they’re traveling.

Unemployment is rising, the stock market is on its third losing year and rumors of war abound. No wonder penny-pinching businesspeople are staying close to home base and Americans are more pessimistic than ever about being able to afford a vacation, surveys show.

Not so the affluent. Or so it would seem.

This month’s issue of Conde Nast Traveler, whose readers have a median annual income of $75,223, was its biggest ever for a January, bulging with 136 pages of upscale advertising.

The two penthouses aboard the Crystal Symphony, priced at nearly $2,000 per person per day, double occupancy, are 99% sold out for the May-to-September season in Europe this year, says luxury line Crystal Cruises. Most sailings have wait lists for the penthouses. (Regular Crystal cabins typically cost $400 and up per person, per day.)

“My business has gone up, up, up,” says Bill Fischer, CEO of New York-based Fischer Travel, a private concierge service for the rich and famous. They pay $10,000 for a membership plus a $5,000 annual retainer to have everything from trips to theater tickets arranged for them.

In a recent online study of 1,700 affluent (household income $75,000 or more) frequent travelers, 89% said they planned to travel as often as in the past, according to Conde Nast, which did the study.

Despite appearances, some wealthy globe-trotters are curtailing travel or spending less.

Luxury hotels, unlike lower-priced ones, had a slight increase in occupancy January through November 2002 versus the same period in 2001, according to Smith Travel Research, a lodging research company based in Hendersonville, Tenn. But luxury room rates logged the biggest decrease, 4.1%. They had to discount to retain business, says Robert Mandelbaum, director of research at PKF Consulting, an international firm of consultants and specialists in the hotel and tourism industries.

Geoffrey Kent, chairman and CEO of the London-based Abercrombie & Kent Group of Companies, says bookings by Americans are down about 15% from last year. The company’s tours typically cost $4,000 to $5,000 per person for two weeks, but it no longer offers a twice-yearly $64,000 around-the-world tour by private jet.

“Over-the-top excesses are out,” Kent says.

Among the reasons luxe travel roars on:

The super-rich don’t care: “The truly wealthy are recession-proof,” says Ritz-Carlton spokeswoman Vivian Deuschl. Or, as Crystal spokeswoman Mimi Weisband explains: “If they made $8 million last year and $5 million this year, they’re still going to take a luxury cruise.” Losses matter less when you have millions or billions to start with.

Travel is a right: For the increasingly sophisticated and stressed-out American traveler, including the affluent, “travel is not considered a luxury,” Deuschl says. “It’s a necessity. It’s vital to their state of mind.”

If strapped, they’ll economize elsewhere. That’s what Conde Nast spokesman Jon Paul Buchmeyer says he learned from one-on-one interviews with 60 of the magazine’s readers. “They may delay getting that sofa next year, but they’re going to take that trip to Prague,” he says.

The time is now: “I want to see all that I can while I can,” says Stan Biesky, 73, a retired sales executive in Brooklyn. Biesky has taken 38 tours with Tauck World Discovery, whose trips average $275 per person per day.

Sept. 11 and the ensuing events added to the urgency.

“A big factor is uncertainty,” Deuschl says. “If I wait five or 10 years, what will the world be like then?”

Refusing to downscale: The 1990s were the golden age of high-end travel. Once accustomed to a little spoiling, wealthy travelers balk at losing it.

“The affluent clientele will not take a step down in accommodations,” Weisband says, although they may take fewer or shorter trips. “If you are used to enjoying a fine red wine, you may cut back, but you’re not going to drink wine from a box,” she says.

Still, the merely ordinarily rich do make adjustments. “Many six-star travelers have become five-star travelers,” says Robin Tauck, president of Tauck World Discovery. Her company renegotiated with its European suppliers to drop tour prices about 3% to 5% this year, instead of increasing 7% to 12% as they typically would, she says.

The quest for security: With all the threats in the world, the wealthy value security and privacy even more than five-star service and dining, says Peter Yesawich, president of Yesa- wich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell, a marketing firm based in Orlando, Fla.

They’re willing to pay for it.

Among Abercrombie & Kent’s hottest new offerings are “Concierge Villas.” For prices starting at $21,950 per week, guests get their own country house with cook, daily maid service and a concierge who can reserve tee times or restaurant tables. “It’s like being in the Four Seasons, but not with other people,” Kent says. An added bonus: “A private villa is not a target.”

Judy Hanzel of Indianapolis, the wife of an affluent business owner who travels little himself, took a Crystal cruise last year and plans to take two this year, partly because she feels “very safe and secure” with the line.

Her globe-trotting has not slowed. But, she says, “I’m finding it harder to get ladies to go with.” Some are afraid of terrorism; others who live on fixed incomes “can’t afford to take the exotic and expensive trips,” she says.

In some ways the rich are like you and me.

Jane Engle welcomes comments and suggestions but cannot respond individually to letters and calls. Write Travel Insider, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, or e-mail jane.engle@latimes.com.