Luxury is evolving. Today’s high-end travellers expect sustainability, privacy, and deeply personalised experiences — all powered by invisible tech. This panel will reveal how luxury brands are using data, design, and digital to redefine exclusivity and future-proof their guest experience.
We bring you excerpts from the panel discussion on the topic 'The Future of Luxury: Personalisation, Purpose & Seamless Tech' taking place at TDM Global Summit Singapore 2025.
The session is being moderated by Phil Hoffmann AM, founder and executive director, Phil Hoffmann Travel, Panellists include: Francesco Galli Zugaro, owner, Aqua Expeditions; Krystal Tan H L, founder & director, Blue Sky Escapes; Paul Gorman, general manager, Luxury Escapes; Christine Galle, founder and CEO, Heavens Portfolio
Experiences driving the market
Elaborating on what they have seen post-COVID in their respective areas, Christine Galle said: "The first wave was the travel rush, everybody wanted to get out. The second wave was of more settled travel. In the first wave, it really did not matter what it cost by the second wave, people were okay with a higher cost for better experience driven activities. And now in the third wave, its moved to what are my 'take-aways' from this travel."
Krystal Tan H L added: "People are travelling more and for longer, they are opting for slow travel and spending more." Paul Gorman said: "Revenge travel was used widely, that was added to by destinations coming online at various paces. Today the youth are spending more on their holiday. So as travel providers we need to articulate an experience for a digital platform to get that millennium traveller. Try and understand how to engage them best."
Exploring Luxury
Phil Hoffmann AM queried the panellists on what experiences do luxury travellers want today? Paul Gorman said that in terms of hotels, most greenfield projects are moving towards luxury, different levels of luxury. Francesco added that curated experiences for different client are becoming relevant, their clients were not not essentially cruisers, maybe safari goers, wildlife enthusiasts, it no longer makes sense to stay focussed on the original travellers.
Christine Galle said that HNI continue to travel, more collaboration is required to identify and cater to this segment. Maybe the brands are not in the travel segment but they are trying to speak to the same audience. Affinity with brands coming together, collaboration between small operators coming together. Meanwhile Krystal Tan H L added that authenticity and wellness are becoming increasingly relevant to luxury. This segment is growing tremendously.
Focussing on identifying and growing talent, she said: If you are not nurturing the people and they are not growing with the brand it would be detrimental for the brand with people leaving. People put the trust and we need to understand peoples emotional need so we provide well."
Experience the "Unexplored"
Giving a different perspective to overcome over tourism with unique experiences, Francesco added: "We look for places without infrastructure, we don't need harbour's or marinas, our ships anchor in a remote Bay. I just came back back from a 21 night expedition to the remote region of West Papua, where we took three groups of guests for seeing the Agatha region, to see the Asmat tribes in West Papua. And you know, to get there was a Singapore- Jakarta flight, Sarong connecting to Kaimana, and then a two day navigation all the way to Agatha region. So you can imagine that that's the kind of experiences that I love to deliver, and that we will obviously shy away from any destination that caters to anything more than what our ships can."
Designing travel experiences to reduce Over Tourism
Over tourism Paul added: "Over tourism in Japan, with many people wanting to say the same place. I think you know the environment and social interaction that we as travellers, we do bear responsibility to respect the destination we're traveling to, to immerse yourself into the culture so you understand where you're traveling to, because that's why you travel. So again, going back to that storytelling, create a reason why you're going. You can do the who, the what, the where and how much, but you know why you traveling to this destination, and what are you going to get out of it? So I think it's important that anyone from the supply side should tell the story correctly and make sure you're delivering the right client destination."
A lot of the local governments are doing a lot. Galapagos has highly restrictive permits in order to enter. Great work being done at the government, local government level to restrict big ships coming into some of the destinations. It's got some really restrictive visitor landing sites that are benefiting only ships below 39 guests. So that starts to take into effect a lot of these destinations, Aldabra, case in point, in East Africa, you have to register your itinerary of your ship in order to have a permanent that site on that specific day, because they trying to control the carrying capacity of these fragile destinations.
Christine Galle, founder and CEO, Heavens Portfolio added, "I follow our hotel project, and I see where they're opening. And so we were talking about Japan. Japan has been the destination for a number of people. We now see hotels going into Korea, opening in Korea. We see hotels opening in Taiwan, whereas there is very little number of inventory yet. So I think the destinations are also dictated by the hotel developments and the capacity of receiving travellers. So I think if you look at the worldwide map and you try and understand where the hotels have, you can define a little bit of where is the next big travel destination."
Sustainability at the core of luxury
Krystal Tan H L added: " I think it's important that it all boils down and begins with the travel designing process. Of course, when we design our trips, we do take a look at the brands that we want to support, which do pay attention to sustainability, which places less stress on the infrastructure. So just that, just as Christine was sharing, Japan is a huge destination for a lot of Singaporeans. And I think, like the most recent cherry blossom season, people were saying that there were more people than cherry blossoms. In those cases, usually with Japan, we try to push the more off the pinna trail destination in Japan. So you've got Saga Prefecture, you've got Nikita, the smaller fringe type of cities and prefectures. And also, even in the way that people travel, we were the first to actually organize a nomadic migration on horseback in Mongolia. And we do a lot of migrations in Mongolia, also because we don't want to be stressing the land a lot, so when you actually supporting the local communities, you're helping them to move the entire site. So it helps the land to heal each time that they're moving to the next location. So I think as travel designers, it is also our responsibility to partner well with them."
Elaborating on the top destinations for 2026 the main ones came across as Scandinavian and Lap land destinations, people want to see the northern lights, parts of Africa, Sri Lanka and the Arctic.
