Here's my test for whether a trip is actually luxury: does the itinerary name the hotel? Plenty of companies sell "five-star accommodations" without ever saying where. Well, a Holiday Inn can be five-star abroad. Star ratings are local, inconsistent, and gameable. So which is it: are we staying at a Holiday Inn, or are we staying at a Four Seasons? If the itinerary won't say, that tells you something.
“If you don't know the hotel, it's not luxury.”
Transparency IS the luxury signal
For luxury trips, name the property, every time. Your clients know the difference between Ellerman House and "a deluxe boutique hotel," and naming it lets the property's own reputation sell alongside you. Withholding hotel names has a legitimate place on value-priced group trips where flexibility keeps costs down. But at luxury price points, mystery reads as evasion.
Claire's own numbers
Claire's three-tier product test
- 1
Luxury
Named five-star properties and service to match
- 2
Upscale
Beautiful, elevated, but not top-tier product
- 3
Cultural
Extraordinary experience, local infrastructure
Name the tier honestly before you name a price. Mislabeling is where client disappointment is manufactured.
Source: Claire B. Soares, from her own travel business and live trainings.
Luxury, upscale, or elevated, pick the true word
The second discipline is labeling your own product honestly. Reserve "luxury" for trips built on genuinely luxury product, Four Seasons-tier stays and service to match. A beautiful trip through destinations where that tier barely exists isn't luxury; it's upscale, or elevated, and those are strong words worth owning. Mislabel it and you misalign expectations, which is where client disappointment is born. The advisors I coach who adopt the truthful word almost always find it sharpens their marketing instead of shrinking it.
Say the hotel. Say the true tier. In a market full of vague promises, specificity is the most underpriced sales weapon a travel advisor has.
Common Questions
What makes a trip actually luxury?
Named properties you can verify, and service that matches them. Star ratings vary by country, so a five-star claim without a property name tells a traveler nothing.
Should a travel advisor name the hotel in the itinerary?
For luxury trips, yes, every time. Transparency is the luxury signal, and the property's own reputation sells alongside you. Withholding names has a place only on value-priced group departures.
What is the difference between luxury, upscale, and cultural travel?
Luxury means genuine top-tier product and service. Upscale means beautiful and elevated but not top tier. Cultural means an extraordinary experience built on local infrastructure. All three are worth selling; only one of them is luxury.
Written By
Claire B. Soares
6× Condé Nast Top Travel Specialist, Certified AI Consultant, and founder of Travel AI University. $3.4B+ in enterprise travel software sold to Google, IBM, Boeing, the federal government, and the DoD; $16M+ in luxury travel sales with Up in the Air Life.
About Claire
