For decades luxury travel has been directed outward, towards places that seemed remote, strange and ever more difficult to access. The worth of a trip has usually been judged by the distance it kept from ordinary life, for example, a private island, an inaccessible mountain lodge or a yacht moored far from the mainland. Yet things are beginning to change. For an increasing number of wealthy travellers the most significant journey might no longer be one to some unknown destination. It might be one to a place closely linked with their own past.
A place they have never been to, a house which they have only seen in an old photograph, a district connected with a family name, and a landscape that was part of their family’s history long before it turned into a destination. Heritage travel is arising out of the wish to understand not merely where we can go but where we come from.
From Destination to Connection
The figures indicate that interest in this area goes beyond being just a minor one. The travel booking platform Bókun noted a dramatic rise in online searches for genealogy tours, the number of such searches having increased by 6,671 per cent in one year alone. Searches for ancestry travel had increased by 1,618 per cent. According to a separate survey by Marriott, 36 per cent of travellers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa had already gone on a heritage holiday.
The figures must be treated with some caution since growth starting from a relatively small base can lead to remarkable percentages and heritage travel is still a specialised area. However, the trend is difficult to ignore.
The appeal is especially appealing to Millennials and Gen Z, which indicates that it is not merely a case of nostalgia among older travellers. Members of the younger generations are becoming more interested in learning about the lives, movements and origins of the people who came before them. The journey is therefore taking on a more personal character.
The End of Destination Collecting
At one time, luxury travel could be described, if not entirely then to some extent, as collecting destinations. Places such as the Riviera, the Maldives, New York, the Dolomites, and Kyoto were part of this. The experienced traveller would go from one well-known location to another, slowly amassing in their mind a list of the world’s finest hotels, restaurants, and landscapes. There’s still something appealing about this approach. However, when a traveller has seen a sufficient number of beautiful places, it becomes more difficult to create a sense of novelty. A better hotel room is still just a better hotel room; another private villa might offer more privacy and another Michelin-starred restaurant could serve an outstanding meal. Yet none of these things necessarily addresses a more personal question: Why is this place important to me? Heritage travel provides a different response, and its value does not stem solely from exclusivity; it comes from relevance.
A Family Name Can Become an Itinerary
Suppose you find out that your great-grandparents were from a little coastal town. The process may start with a genealogical archive and some documents, and then go on to include the local church records, an old family address, the cemetery, a talk with a historian, and maybe even a meal that has been passed down from generation to generation according to a regional custom. The final destination ceases to be important, the story instead taking the place of the itinerary. It is for this reason that heritage travel becomes so interesting from a luxury point of view. The ideal approach is not a pre-arranged genealogy tour but rather a highly personal journey centred on one family, one individual and one history. Research comes before travel. The itinerary is determined by the discoveries made, and the experience may alter as further information comes to light. This is quite different from selecting a destination from a list.
Technology Can Tell You Where to Look
The availability of DNA testing, digital archives and online genealogical databases has meant that this type of research is now much easier. A family anecdote which used to conclude with the name of a great-grandparent can nowadays, in some cases, be traced across generations and borders. However, there is a clear limitation of technology in this regard: although it can identify a location it cannot always explain what that location meant, for that still has to come from people.
A local historian might know the reason why a family moved. An archivist could come across a document that had been overlooked. An architect might be able to describe the character of a house which no longer exists. A chef might reconstruct a traditional dish from an old family custom. The digital record can give the coordinates. The physical journey gives the context.
Why the Adriatic Is Particularly Interesting
There is perhaps no part of Europe more naturally suited to this kind of travel than the Adriatic region. The eastern coast has for centuries been at the crossroads of various cultures, empires and trading networks. Venetian influence is present together with Austro-Hungarian heritage. Mediterranean traditions blend with Slavic ones. The coastal towns are linked to the inland areas, and migration has seen families from the region move throughout Europe and to places beyond. For a person whose family left Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro or the wider Adriatic area many generations ago, a visit back can therefore be more than just a holiday; it can be an effort to rebuild a world that no longer exists. It might involve a stone house, an old harbour, a family name engraved in a cemetery, or a village landscape known only through stories. And then there is the modern Adriatic: its hotels, restaurants, vineyards, islands and private villas. Both of these experiences can go on together. The luxury consists in linking them.
The New Meaning of Bespoke
It is necessary to distinguish between personalised travel and truly bespoke travel. Personalisation could involve recalling that a guest has a preference for a certain type of wine or room. Bespoke travel, on the other hand, begins a great deal earlier and starts with finding out why the journey is being taken at all.
An itinerary based on heritage could involve months of preparation before the traveller takes a plane. The research might lead to the discovery of previously unknown places, long-lost relatives, or different versions of the family’s story.
The fact that it is uncertain is one of the reasons people are attracted to it; the journey is not just about delivering it to the client it is about discovering it together.
A Different Kind of Luxury
Exclusivity has always been linked to scarcity in the luxury industry since there are only a limited number of suites, villas, yachts and private islands. Heritage, however, provides a different kind of scarcity based on personal significance: there is only one place where your family’s story first began, only one house in which an ancestor might have lived and only one landscape that has shaped generations of your family. No other traveller can have the same experience. Because of this, heritage travel is particularly resistant to being turned into a commercial product. A private island can be bought by many people but your history cannot.
Beyond the Souvenir
There’s also a certain quiet charm in the fact that heritage travel doesn’t always involve the typical signs of luxury. It might not include a photograph worth sharing, no booking at a famous restaurant, and perhaps no particularly splendid hotel. The most significant moment could occur in an archive, on a village street, or as a result of a conversation with an elderly local who remembers a family name. This proves an interesting reversal for a generation used to documenting their travels, since the value of the journey may indeed be found in the aspects that are hard to photograph.
The Journey Back
Luxury travel has always been about having access – access to different places, to people, to various experiences and to time. Heritage travel introduces a further aspect: access to one’s own past. For experienced travellers, this might turn out to be more attractive than simply ticking off another destination on a list. Since ultimately the question changes; it doesn’t anymore just become Where haven’t I been? Instead it becomes: What don’t I yet understand about where I come from? And it could be that this is where heritage travel achieves its true importance. The most valuable journey might not lead us to some entirely new place, it might instead take us to a place that has been waiting for us all along.
Photo: unsplash.com
