The Emerald Handbook of Luxury Management for Hospitality and Tourism

Anupama S. Kotur, Saurabh Kumar Dixit, Anupama S. Kotur, Saurabh Kumar Dixit

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781839829024
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

Luxury is an ever-evolving concept with various interpretations in the domain of hospitality and tourism. The understanding of luxury hospitality and travel has revolved around exclusive and authentic experiences, nuanced by finer things with a focus on value rather than price. The marketing of luxury products and services has become increasingly complex as these products and services are associated not only with an image of quality, performance, and authenticity but also with how extreme experiences and products fulfil the lifestyle constructs of consumers.

The Emerald Handbook of Luxury Management for Hospitality and Tourism brings together global philosophies, principles and practices in luxury tourism management from both supply and demand perspectives. Several global case studies are presented, further illustrating the changing paradigms of luxury travel market and consumers enabling insight into the upcoming global luxury travel market.

Encompassing the vibrant case studies and contemporary discussions on luxury hospitality and tourism developments during the post-pandemic era, this volume will serve as an essential resource for students, researchers, and industry practitioners of hospitality, tourism, management, and marketing consumer behavior, and consumer studies.

Part 1
Conceptualising Luxury

Chapter 1

Historical Progression of Luxury

Vinay Chauhan, Suvidha Khanna and Sandeva Khajuria

Abstract

Throughout history, the concept of luxury has had different emphases. It was scaling its existence in tourism, from the lifestyles of ancient kingdoms to the Roman empire's witnessing sightseeing trips, tourist attractions in townships to business tours and luxury hotels in Paris to the British phenomenon of ‘The Grand Tour’ and the ‘Golden Age of Travel’. The chapter also covers its spread across the small number of affluent societies and groups of wealthy consumers hailing from not only developed but developing economies in the early twentieth century.

Presently, the concept has become ‘mass’ as the Digital-First Millennial and Generation X, and also the affluent female market is all contributing to reshape the concept and the demand of luxury travel in the emerging scenario. Therefore, to understand it fully, it is imperative to review what has gone before and the influences of factors such as economic development, technological innovation and the consumption behaviour for luxury in different societies. Thus, the chapter is an attempt to understand the historical progression of luxury tourism for giving directions for future implications for the sustainable growth of this form of tourism across the globe and in India. The chapter concludes by noting the applied and social approaches in the development of luxury tourism, leaving many academic researchers and those in the tourism industry to resolve the real progression of luxury tourism and its development with the support of a cross-cultural perspective.

Keywords: Luxury; tourism; historical progression; cross-cultural; experiential-based approach; luxury experience

Introduction

The increase in luxury tourism attracted the attention of academics and industry. Marketing and consumer behaviour literature suggest that luxury and non-luxury attitudes depend on consumers' judgement (Chang, Ko, & Leite, 2016; Dixit, 2017; Tynan, McKechnie, & Chhuon, 2010). Tourists are looking for the different/extraordinary element that leads to more services and inclusion of experiential factor to the physical factors. A leading example comprises an increased use of luxury products and services, particularly tourism, as tourists desire to visit unique places and take up memorable experience-filled activities (Veríssimo & Loureiro, 2013). According to Strong (2006), luxury travel can be explained as travels for the elites that involve luxurious first-class facilities and amenities and very important person (VIP) service, creating a lasting memory and transformative experience and enhancing the customers' lifestyle. According to Schänzel, Yeoman, & Backer (2012), luxury lies in limited edition, authentic, customised and kind products, and one of the main goals for all those marketers interested in positioning their offer in the luxury market is to create an illusion of acute personalisation. Purinton-Johnson (2013) defines luxury travel covers high-class tangible and intangible aspects of the product. Accordingly, luxury travel meant to take up a novel experience and visit a rare and exotic place, having exclusive services, staying at lavish and luxurious accommodation, having unmatched food, hiring well-informed and professional travel guides, etc. It is considered a stress-free way of travel that eliminates the pressure of daily lives, so that all expectations are not only met but exceeded.

The definition is highly relevant for cruise ship products or 5-star accommodation (Chen & Peng, 2014). Fitzsimmons (2017), supported by Schensul (2017), points out a perspective and explains that ‘luxurious’ is not about materials but about experience and service, something precious, rare, invested in emotional value, such as choosing one's room fragrance, blending your wine and enjoying an outstanding and personal collection of art, plants or other collectable artefacts.

However, at the same time, the level of luxury, one of the main motivations of tourists, also depends on the income and budget of each tourist (Riley, 1995; Yeoman & McMahon-Beattie, 2006). Later, Schänzel et al. (2012) introduced time, wellness and cultural enrichment as antecedents of luxury tourism. To summarise, ‘luxury can be anything, accessible to mass markets, not traditional, but personal, authentic and experiential’, but, after all, the old-world luxury of consumption and exclusiveness still keeps its original icon (Yeoman & McMahon-Beattie, 2006).

Historical Progression

Global Perspective

The concept has changed and evolved over a period of time with evident roots in history, dating back to about 200 or 300 years, although some would argue that its existence has a much longer history with its origin from empires and kingdoms; however, as a business practice, luxury hotels in Paris use to reflect the tastes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. If the history of tourism is evaluated, it is found that travel was basically for pilgrimage, business, military, explorers and adventurers, and general travellers (sightseers) in earlier days. It is, however, true that for any form of tourism during those days, anything beyond just travel was considered a luxury. For example, for a poor person, travelling on a horse was considered to be a luxury. In the case of sightseeing travellers, it was a luxury affair as they would only visit a place if they have disposable income and free time, which comes in luxury's purview. So, it was mainly for the ‘affluent class’. The Roman Empire witnessed people travelling to nearby places for sightseeing as well as to long distances. Not only were their liveable accommodations, but fine villas, scrumptious food and drinks, especially for the more affluent section, so that along with the comfort, they can enjoy themselves during their journeys. The towns had sightseeing places and attractions. But it was not seen as a luxury by many as they had similar luxuries at the homes. Yet both the Romans and the Greeks travelled in minimal numbers as tourists for a century or so ago.

There came the concept of a Grand Tour. The very British phenomenon called ‘The Grand Tour’ is perhaps one of the first embodiments of the idea of luxury travel in history. This era (1613–1785), which led to the luxury travel and tourism activities, started with the wealthy English and subsequently spread to become a trend among other individuals who had time and money. It was more like a vacation meant to enhance the knowledge and experience of the young aristocrats. As in today's time, as the students take a gap year, a Grand Tour too was a sabbatical time in which the young people, especially men, provide them with a broader perspective of education and art. But this tour was not for everyone. Being a luxury, it was taken only by those having disposable time and income. Also, being lasting for a period of two to three years, involving a lot of travelling, staying at fine accommodations, having good food and entertainment, it happened to an expensive event, and, thus, only elite could go for a Grand Tour. Grand Tour remained very popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. And by the end of the eighteenth century, as it was becoming more and more desirable, people with lesser disposable money also craved for a similar experience. Thus, a new type of Grand Tour was conducted for people who travelled for hedonism and sightseeing, rather than education and travelled for weeks rather than months and years. The Grand Tour was gradually considered a trend that took its peak during about 1660 until rail transport in the 1840s was the advent and was associated with a standard itinerary, especially for educational purposes. The concept of the Grand Tour was primarily associated with the British nobility and wealthy gentry, but during the second half of the eighteenth century, the young men from other countries, including North America, South America and nations from Northern Europe, started taking up these trips. The Grand Tour had become a regular feature of aristocratic education in Central Europe, although it was restricted to the higher nobility by the mid-eighteenth century. Along with the aristocracy but in ever more significant numbers, the wealthy people were at the heart of the ‘Golden Age of Travel’, a nostalgic term when travel was the preserve of a fortunate small minority with European and American societies. And gradually, the concept travelled to other parts of the world too in the nineteenth century, and, therefore, J. Gilford-Milne published a paper on this very subject in 1916, leading to the conclusion that the concept of luxury tourism has taken a gearing shape. The rise of the wealthy class that emerged from the grime and suffering of the industrial revolution in Europe and the United States (and the ones who earned wealth on their own) coincided with the railway and steamship age. Alongside the aristocracy, this concept grew in ever larger numbers during the early nineteenth century, and this period is known as the ‘Golden Age of Travel’. Conspicuous consumption was necessary, whether through travelling first class on ocean liners, buying art or gambling at the casino.

Today, luxury tourism has more or less become ‘mass’ with a continuously increasing demand on the part of everyone who wants a touch of luxury in their lives, and this previously exclusive market is now being accessed by people from different levels of the societies and no longer confined to a few or very wealthy. According to Fedeli (2011), the concept of luxury is relative, based on a series of physical factors and the perceptions and personal evaluation that people attribute to them. Kapferer and Laurent (2015) support the idea to analyze the perception of consumers to detect the consumers' definition of luxury. The trend shows that Digital-First Millennial and Generation X and the affluent female market contribute to reshaping concept and the demand for luxury travel in the emerging scenario (Danziger, 2019). Not only that, the middle class and upper middle class are the upcoming markets in the luxury travel landscape, which is going to influence the supply dynamics (Jain, 2018). Therefore, to understand it fully, it is imperative to review what has gone before and the influences of factors such as economic development, technological innovation and the consumption behaviour for luxury in different societies. The conclusive global historical progression of luxury tourism is presented in the following Table 1.1.

Table 1.1. Global Historical Progression of Luxury Tourism.

Age/year	Developmental Perspective
The era of kingdoms and empires	Luxury tourism had existence but was not very much known.
200–300 years ago	The concept was any form of tourism beyond just travel was a luxury.
Roman Empire	Sightseeing trips were there over long distances too. Although travel was existent with the luxury concept, the quality was simila...