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Drawing on Audley’s research, extensive conversations with its global network of experts, and in-house survey data, one insight rises above all others: in 2026, the true currency of luxury travel is time.
Not just its scarcity, but an acute awareness of its preciousness. For those with the means to travel, the question is no longer simply where to go, but how best to invest the finite days available.
Here, Audley’s Private Concierge service proves indispensable – acting as strategist, guardian and even portfolio manager of a client’s most irreplaceable asset.
This insight is the thread woven through each of the trends. Cruises have never just been about languishing onboard; they’ve always been as much about the terra-firma excursions dotted throughout. But, increasingly, the traveller’s thirst for knowledge (see our “Brain Waves” trend) and the desire to maximise their experience sees cruise being paired with a dramatic land or rail accompaniment (“Port+”, “Edgebound”), with the ship becoming one of many mediums through which travellers can really commune with a destination.
Family travel, while broader in scope and more multi-generational than ever before, is splintering into “Multi-Spoke Itineraries” that see less time spent together but a greater sense of connection. Meanwhile, expectations are growing for “Concierge Curators” who can plot delicately choreographed travel plans spanning multiple years – dancing around life milestones, family obligations and global mega events.
And then there’s the feeling that people want to really do something meaningful with their time. The female traveller is shaping trips that put other women at the centre (“Women 2 Women”), both out of concern for personal safety but also a desire to affect change – a natural branching out of the recent trend for regenerative travel.
That same sense of reward is spurring the trend for “Soft Expeditions”, where travellers return with all the anecdotes and personal enlightenment of an adventure trip but in a snippet of the time. All of this is to say, travellers are spending their time mindfully – not like there’s no tomorrow, but as the precious and finite resource that it is.
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