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As hotel rates track at record highs, affluent Aussie travellers are increasingly looking for value, with a greater number booking holidays one to two years in advance, according to global travel network Virtuoso.

The trend, particularly prevalent in Australia, was among those revealed in Virtuoso’s 2025 Luxe Report.

“Aussies usually go to places with incredible value overall,” Virtuoso EVP David Kolner told LATTE. “They are places you can go for a long time.”

By contrast, American travellers have less time at their disposal and so value is not such a priority – even in the current climate where prices are heating up.

“There’s no decrease in pricing or demand so I don’t really see in the high end space of luxury leisure that discounting or price reductions are coming,” Kolner shared. “In fact, we’ve experienced a 5-10% increase in average hotel rate this year which is on top of 2023’s record highs.

“We’re on track to hit a US$2,000 average daily rate for the festive period worldwide for all of our hotels which will be an absolute record for our network in terms of price.”

This quest for value acts to highlight the role of the travel advisor, according to Kolner. Navigating the peaks and troughs in pricing in different destinations at different times of year is just one of their many areas of expertise.

Not only that, but they can “retrain” travellers to book in advance in order to plan the perfect holiday.

“We see a huge increase in planning in advance, a 30% increase in planning one to two years out compared to last year even,” he said. “This is a trend that’s blossomed this year.”

This lean toward advance planning means customers can access “better things” as well as lower prices.

“If you have a multi generation family travelling together, you need a certain configuration of rooms – they don’t just grow on trees,” Kolner pointed out. “And if you want a specific destination or place, you have to book in advance to get that now because there’s so much demand globally”.

This forward planning also means that travellers can have an all-round better experience during their trip as it allows their travel advisor to “do their best job”.

“They can work with our local contacts and customize the trip better when you’re working in advance versus a last-minute experience,” he said. “Affluent clients are really thinking differently now.”

That’s not to say that last minute travel doesn’t have its place, he hastened to add.

“There is still a lot of last-minute travel that’s happening, and, to some degree, the average daily rate is lower last minute for us,” he said. “But that’s also because maybe there aren’t as many of the luxury experiences left, so clients may just have to get what’s available.

“So advisors also are trying to retrain their clients that you get what’s left over when you book at the last minute, and it may be a slightly different experience to what you had hoped for.”

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