The travel industry wants everyone to go premium — for a price.

Consumers who got a taste of high-end amenities in recent years aren’t too keen to go back to basic economy, and the travel industry doesn’t want them to.

Consumers who got a taste of higher-end amenities during the last couple years’ travel boom aren’t too keen to go back to basic economy, and the travel industry doesn’t want them to.

“If ‘revenge travel’ was then, emboldened travel is now,” said Erika Richter, a spokesperson for the American Society of Travel Advisors, which has seen customers continuing to take advantage of the upgraded offerings operators are dangling. With travel volumes still trending well ahead of pre-pandemic highs, “premium leisure travel is definitely on the rise,” said Henry Harteveldt, president of Atmosphere Research Group, which analyzes the travel industry.

At the top end of the market, the most deep-pocketed consumers are still spending heavily on high-dollar getaways and exclusive experiences. Now, airlines, hotels and cruises are prodding passengers of less lavish means to go premium, too — in some cases revising down what counts as “luxury.”

Caleb Cash-Tobey and his husband have been springing for larger rooms and suites than they used to. Each year, the Fort Smith, Arkansas-based couple takes one major trip as well as smaller monthly ones that they’re increasingly comfortable enhancing with extra amenities, such as evening turndown service and in-room breakfast.

“We’ve learned that we should take the experience when it is offered, because some experiences are no longer available in the post-Covid world that we may have really enjoyed,” Cash-Tobey said, citing a Champagne-augmented tour of the British crown jewels that a favorite London hotel discontinued.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/travel/travel-industry-wants-everyone-go-premium-price-rcna132871

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