The value of a holiday booking can look very different when a customer sits down with a travel expert, according to Luxury Escapes chairman Andrew McEvoy.<\/strong><\/p>\n Speaking to Travel Weekly<\/em> at the opening of Luxury Escapes\u2019 first Queensland boutique at Westfield Chermside, McEvoy said the company\u2019s physical stores are encouraging travellers to spend more on the elements that turn a package into a complete holiday.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen people come in, especially in an environment like this, they\u2019re pretty relaxed, and they\u2019re meeting a travel expert who can help them not just with the package they want to book\u2026 but everything that goes into it beyond that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe sell a lot more airfares, transfers and ground content like tours and experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n Luxury Escapes\u2019 investment in physical retail is part of a broader strategy to complement its digital foundations with more personalised customer experiences.<\/p>\n The company, which began as an online travel business, now operates three Australian boutiques, with locations at Melbourne\u2019s Chadstone Shopping Centre, Bondi Junction in Sydney and its newest store at Chermside.<\/p>\n McEvoy said the concept was deliberately different from traditional travel retail, with the spaces also designed to host events for premium members and provide a platform for tourism boards, airlines, destinations and hotel groups to engage directly with customers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do think the mix of online and personal connection actually really does matter in travel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen people take a holiday, they\u2019re taking a risk, and they want to see the whites of someone\u2019s eyes and be able to trust someone that what they\u2019re booking is real.\u201d<\/p>\n As artificial intelligence increasingly influences how travellers research, discover and book holidays, McEvoy said he sees physical retail as complementary to the technology rather than a competing proposition.<\/p>\n Luxury Escapes is already using AI across its operations, including customer enquiries, website development and coding, but he said different customers continued to have different preferences when it came to booking.<\/p>\n Around 60 per cent of customers book packages directly online, just over 30 per cent book via phone, while approximately five to six per cent prefer to visit a physical store.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re big into AI, we want to be discoverable and easily searched, and that\u2019s what we work on,\u201d McEvoy said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut beyond that, the personal experience still does matter.\u201d<\/p>\n He said the business was focused on making each channel work together seamlessly.<\/p>\n Another priority is building long-term relationships with customers through Soci\u00e9t\u00e9, the company\u2019s loyalty program, which now has more than two million members.<\/p>\n The program offers benefits across its membership tiers, including complimentary upgrades, airport transfers and lounge passes, giving travellers more reasons to return to the platform.<\/p>\n McEvoy said the business had a database of approximately 18 million people who had either purchased from or considered purchasing through Luxury Escapes, creating a significant opportunity to deepen engagement.<\/p>\n Ultimately, he said, loyalty came down to delivering an experience that lived up to the promise of the booking.<\/p>\n \u201cThe feedback for our packages and our sort of flash-style stuff is often, \u2018It\u2019s too good to be true\u2019. But then they have a trip and it\u2019s affordable, it\u2019s fantastic, they\u2019re well looked after and have a great time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the best way to create loyalty, and that\u2019s why people keep coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n McEvoy believes Luxury Escapes still has considerable room to expand, both internationally and across different travel categories.<\/p>\n Its membership base now extends into the US, UK, Germany, Singapore and Hong Kong, with international markets presenting an important opportunity for the business to scale its model.<\/p>\n We think there\u2019s a lot of room to grow, not just here in Australia, but geographically.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n McEvoy also identified cruising as an area where Luxury Escapes could build a stronger presence.<\/p>\n \u201cWe think there\u2019s a lot of room to grow, not just here in Australia, but geographically,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Physical retail remains another part of that opportunity, although McEvoy said the company would take a considered approach to further openings.<\/p>\n While tight-lipped about where the next Luxury Escapes boutique would open, he said future locations would depend on finding the right venues and ensuring each store could deliver a strong customer experience while remaining profitable.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to make sure that as we open new stores, we bed them down into great experiences for people before we consider the next one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n kabarsula SLOT <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The value of a holiday booking can look very different when a customer sits down…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kabarsula"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Luxury](\"https:\/\/travelweekly.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/dji_export_20261113_photo_0001-1-1024x765.jpg\"\/)
![\"Luxury](\"https:\/\/travelweekly.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/dji_export_20261113_photo_0001-1-1024x765.jpg\")
![\"Technology](\"https:\/\/travelweekly.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/JJI78761-1024x683.jpg\"\/)
![\"Technology](\"https:\/\/travelweekly.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/JJI78761-1024x683.jpg\")
A place for people and technology<\/b><\/h2>\n
The role of loyalty<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"Inside](\"https:\/\/travelweekly.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/JJI78663-1-1024x684.jpg\"\/)
![\"Inside](\"https:\/\/travelweekly.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/JJI78663-1-1024x684.jpg\")
Room to grow<\/b><\/h2>\n
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