TORONTO — When high-end clients want to travel, they’re going to travel – no matter the political situation, or even economic concerns.

According to a panel of luxury travel retailers taking part in yesterday’s Virtuoso press conference, while sales may have dipped for a brief time after a roaring start to the year, bookings are back, big time.

“They’re continuing to prioritize travel. They’re going. I haven’t even really seen a slowdown. As a company we’re busier than ever,” said Catherine Davis with Zebrano Travel.

She added: “The ultra-luxe traveller is maybe better with uncertainty. They’re also less price sensitive.”

Susan Lawson, Director of Engagement, Trevello Travel Group, estimates a 10% jump in sales year over year. “Clients are shifting [destinations] rather than cancelling.

The trade war’s impact on travel was top of mind for yesterday’s panel discussion, addressed right off the bat as “the elephant in the room,” in the words of moderator Ùna O’Leary, Virtuoso’s GM, Canada. The event took place at The Ritz-Carlton, Toronto.

Meredith Burbidge, Leisure Client Engagement, Direct Travel, said all the trade war and tariff talk did cause bookings to plateau for a bit, “but that’s already starting to wane. Clients are still travelling, they’re just making different choices.”

Karen Marquardt Wyers, a travel advisor with TTI Travel, said the importance of those choices has put travel advisors in the spotlight now more than ever: “You really become that advisor and collaborator. It’s a partnership.”

As Davis put it, when asked for her words of wisdom when navigating travel decisions in these roller coaster times, “it’s vital to use a travel agent. That’s our job, we love it, and we’re good at it.”

Davis added that she’s booking more travel insurance than ever, a widespread trend in the industry these days.

The panel also had advice for travel advisors tempted to vent their trade war frustration with inflammatory rhetoric on social media. “This is all going to end and we’re all going to come out the other side. We need to maintain those relationships with our friends and neighbours on the other side of the border.”

Top choices for trending travel destinations, according to the panel, include Switzerland, Tasmania and Bhutan.

CANADA’S BOOKING WINDOW: 105 DAYS, ACCORDING TO VIRTUOSO DATA

Ahead of yesterday’s panel discussion, O’Leary shared more trending destinations gathered from Virtuoso’s network-wide analytics.

The luxury travel network is seeing a “huge return” to Asia, with Tokyo up 116%, and Bhutan up 196%. Cooler vacation spots are still going strong, like Courchevel (up 132%) and Val-d’Isere (up 457%).

Bookings for the UK countryside, no doubt fuelled by screen tourism for shows like Bridgerton and Downton Abbey, is up 173%. Other big winners include the Athenian Riviera (up 132%), Sicily (up 135%) and Malta (up 140%).

From the Canadian market specifically, O’Leary cited trends including Ice-olated Escapes, Sailing Solo, Born to be Mild (for the very soft adventure crowd), You Tell Me Travel (word of mouth is as influential as ever), and Palate & Place for the foodies.

The top motivator for Canada’s high-end travel centres on milestone celebrations, with escaping winter weather, exploring new destinations, spending time with loved ones and good ol’ R&R rounding out the top five.

Also specific to the Canadian market, destinations on the rise include Portugal, Antarctica, Costa Rica, Iceland and Colombia. Top city picks are Lisbon, Barcelona, Paris, Rome and Tokyo.

Panelist Marquardt Wyers noted that before all the trade war talk put a crimp in travel’s momentum, her clients were looking at spring 2025 travel plans back in fall 2024. Many of the panelists spoke of trip planning as akin to investment planning, suggesting that some clients do best with multi-year future travel plans. Clients looking to avoid the hubbub of Rome’s Jubilee celebrations this year, for example, might decide to save that city for 2026, and travel somewhere else this year.

Virtuoso’s data shows that Canada’s average booking window is 105 days. That’s a bit shorter than the global average of 125 days in 2024 (up from 118 days in 2023).

Global sales for Virtuoso were up 22.4% in 2024, and global future leisure sales were up 33%. Future cruise bookings were up 49% YOY in 2024, with a 26% increase for ocean cruising, 31% for river, 76% for yacht cruising and 35% for expedition cruising.

Virtuosos’s Canadian footprint has grown to 27 agencies with a total of 1,435 travel advisors (54% ICs, 46% full-time employees).