The findings from Virtuoso’s latest data, revealed during the very buzzy 38th annual Virtuoso Travel Week, which took place in Las Vegas across Bellagio Resort & Casino, ARIA Resort & Casino, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and Vdara Hotel & Spa, show that luxury travel continues to build on an already strong performance.
Sales are pacing more than 20 percent higher year over year, with every region growing, hotel rates continuing to climb and forward bookings one to two years out surging, as Executive VP of Strategic Communications David Kolner noted during the Week’s Opening Session. Those headline numbers came into sharper focus during the press conference, where media got a deeper dive into the data behind the trends.
Misty Belles, Virtuoso’s VP of Global Public Relations, took us through the data, offering a snapshot of the state of luxury travel in 2026. One of the most important pieces of data, and one Virtuoso has been looking at for the last couple of years through a “coolcations” lens, is the idea of “fallcations.”
“It’s not just about people seeking cooler climates, they’re looking to change the seasonality of travel,” said Belles. In fact, fall 2026 bookings are up 59 percent and sales are up 69 percent. September leads on sales, up 77 percent with a 55 percent increase in bookings, while October bookings are up 59 percent and November is up more than 70 percent on both measures. This, said Belles, “is one of the clearest signals we’re seeing that shoulder season is now peak season. And if you were looking to get a deal in September, that’s probably not going to happen.”
For those fall bookings, your destination short list should include Paris, the Amalfi Coast, the French Riviera, Tuscany, New York, London, Lake Como, Maui, Rome and Hawaii, as those are the top 10 travel destinations for the season, according to Virtuoso’s findings.
And as fallcations become the talk of the town, the festive season is not necessarily taking a back seat, with festive season sales up 56 percent year over year and bookings up 65 percent. Hawaii is the number one destination for holiday travel, with other warm-weather destinations also making the top 10 cut, including Cabo, Costa Rica, St. Barths and St. John’s (Antigua), among other Mexico and Caribbean destinations.
Luxury travelers are also looking to book city-hopping vacations, “where,” noted Belles, “people are packaging multiple cities together.” Virtuoso is labeling it “city-maxxing,” or multi-city, multi-week itineraries. And this is not for the faint of heart—luxury travelers are lengthening their vacations and combining, for example, Singapore, London and New York in a single trip. Popular “destination-maxxing” luxe vacations include France and Italy, France and the UK, and Italy and Switzerland.
We know you have lots of luxury clients asking about private villas, but another trend that’s emerging is travelers looking to book hotels with private members’ clubs. Similarly, travelers are looking at stays in “ultra-exclusive hotel-within-hotels,” as Belles pointed out. In fact, according to Virtuoso data, 54 percent of luxury travelers prioritize spending on private experiences and tours, with 12 percent looking at hotel upgrades and 8 percent looking at both flight enhancements and Michelin dining.
A ‘Healthy’ Outlook
Wellness, or wellbeing, travel was another big topic of conversation during Virtuoso Travel Week, with wellness-segmented hotels outpacing the broader hotel portfolio—bookings are up 28 percent, sales are up 44 percent and ADRs are up 23 percent. “The wellness segment is really a standalone segment,” noted Belles. “It’s no longer added on to something else.
“Part of the reason why is that we’re seeing three distinct types of wellness travelers: The performance optimizer tends to be a little bit younger, a little more entrepreneurial and they’re treating wellness like a business. They want to know what their wellness level is right now and how they can make it better. Then we also have the restoration seeker. This is often someone who might be a little bit older and who genuinely just needs to recover from day-to-day life. Then you also have the meaning seeker who’s looking for a more spiritual experience from wellness.”
Wellness is also intrinsically linked to sustainability, with 1 in 3 global luxury travelers returning to nature as a reason for a leisure trip. And this style of vacation will continue to surge, as Belle noted: “The younger generations are leading the charge.” Virtuoso’s data shows that 74 percent of Gen Z and 71 percent of Millennials are making sustainable choices when it comes to vacation planning, while 58 percent of Gen X and 51 percent of Boomers keep this top of mind. “There’s a movement,” said Belles, “with people wanting to reconnect with nature. However, nobody wants to give up their luxury either. So, if it’s going to be sustainable, it also better be very comfortable and luxurious as well. We’re seeing regenerative travel factor into people’s decisions. They like the idea of leaving a place better than how they found it, and they like brands that support that.”
All Eyes on AI
”AI is the topic du jour everywhere,” said Belles during the press conference. “One thing I’ll say about it from our perspective is that AI is already being integrated into the business of our advisors. Seventy-four percent of our member advisors and 70 percent of our preferred partners are using AI in some way.
“We also have a little bit slightly different interpretation of AI in that it can also stand for ‘any individual.’ With the help of AI, everyone is an expert; everyone can do a best of list; everyone can write a great press release; everyone can write a travel story.” This means that AI-generated travel content overlaps, producing itineraries that are repetitive rather than tailored, and contributing to overcrowding at the destinations it keeps recommending.
So, when your clients send you an AI-generated itinerary and ask you to create their vacation based on it, remind them that you’re the expert. Virtuoso clients agree on this last note, as three in four cite their advisor’s accommodation and destination expertise as a key benefit, and three in five point to an advisor’s ability to curate experiences tailored to them.
