I just spent a couple days at the Luxury Travel Expo in Las Vegas. This is an annual meet-up between high-performing travel agents and many of the companies catering to the upscale travel market.

In general, luxury travelers like you are still out and about as much as ever. After a dip in 2010, many of the agencies and tour companies are seeing big increases in business. There’s a bit more price resistance, sure, but those who travel well are still going. And they don’t want a routine trip. We may have all given up on our congress being able to accomplish virtually anything, but we’re getting on a plane anyway.

There are some interesting trends emerging, however, and a lot of them came out in a panel discussion with the heads of four upscale tour companies. One of them, Swain Tours, doesn’t cover Latin America, but the other three do to at least some extent: Tauck, Abercrombie & Kent, and Classic Vacations. Here’s what they had to say.

1) People with money see travel as a high priority.
For most high-end travelers, a vacation is going to happen, no matter what kind of cutbacks are going on in their life. “These people lead busy lives and what they care about most is connections,” says Daniel Maher of Tauck Tours. “They want to spend their time with friends and family on special experiences. They want good value, sure, but high quality, a special experience shared with the people they care about. That need for connections and experience is even growing even more quickly in this time when all this turmoil is happening.”

Scott Wiseman from Abercrombie and Kent agreed, saying that customers now don’t just talk about where they went: it’s more about what they experienced, what they did, who they came in contact with. “People are looking for truly special experiences.”

2) Multi-generational travel is big and getting bigger
I heard this a lot at the Adventure Travel Summit this year too. As people with means seek out those special experiences that will generate a lifetime of memories, they often want to share it with their whole extended family. Ian Swain of Swain Tours said, “It’s not uncommon now for us to get a group of 20 or 30 relatives traveling together.” So don’t worry that these tour companies or specialty agents can’t accommodate your request: they’re used to making sure the itinerary works for everyone, from 9-year-olds who need to be entertained to 90-year-olds with mobility issues.

3) Perception is still a problem for Mexico, but it’s getting better.
Greg Bernd of Classic Vacations says their Mexico business has really picked up the last three months as other negative news has captured the attention of the cable news networks. And perhaps people have gotten better at reading a map. (I went to Mexico presentation where they reminded everyone that Cabo San Lucas is 1,000 miles from the border and Cancun is 3,000.) He said, “There’s terrific new infrastructure, true luxury resorts, and service that is better than it has ever been. There’s incredible value in that marketplace.”

4) More destination weddings
Greg from Classic Vacations says last time he was at Grand Velas in the Riviera Maya of Mexico, “There were four weddings a day going on there.” All four panelists said they’re seeing an uptick in this business as people seek a special experience and in some cases—like in Mexico or Central America—it ends up being a better value for the people paying the bill.

5) You can save a bundle by following a crisis.
Scott from Abercrombie & Kent said, “On a slow weekend, CNN loves to cover the worst of what these countries has to offer.” They were having trouble getting people to go to Egypt after discounting 20 or 30%. Since A&K has 400+ employees though, the company wanted to keep guests coming. “When we lowered the price by half, the safety fears evaporated. We crossed the critical axis.” (With eyes and ears on the ground there, they know the real story and how to adapt to changing conditions—another reason to use an experienced operator.)

Nearly anyone who has gone to Mexico from the summer of 2008 onward has found terrific value. There were other opportunities in Honduras (post-coup), Chile (post-earthquake), and the mother of all opportunities in Latin America: Argentina 10 years ago after the financial meltdown. Do your homework and, if you’re worried about safety, go with a tour company that has a long history in that region. They’ll have the contacts to adapt and you’ll probably get a significant discount or lots of extra perks.

6) We’re sick of extra charges
Daniel from Tauck says, “Customers don’t want to be fooled or have other fees piled on top. They really resent it.” He says they can’t control the shady practices from airlines or resorts, but their company tries to quote prices that get all that in the mix from the beginning. They have worked out how to present a flat rate for airfare to Europe with all the fuel surcharges and other gotchas already folded in. “We try to give an all-inclusive price and then surprise to the upside with extras the guest wasn’t expecting, to be proactive and create those special memories.”

Greg from Classic Vacations agreed that airfare costs—and fuel surcharges—are one of the biggest obstacles for many of his customers. Flights to Hawaii, where they are very active, have increased dramatically in price. They’ve had some success offering airfare credits back with the booking of a certain number of nights at high-end hotels.

P.S. – As I listened to this last part about annoying fees that make customers resentful, I was typing on my laptop and pulled up the Wi-Fi screen for the convention center at Mandalay Bay Hotel in Vegas. Here’s a screen shot below. How does $525 a day for Wi-Fi sound, on top of a “resort fee”? That’s what I pay Verizon for almost an entire year of fiber optic cable internet access direct to my home…

We're ALL going to Belize!

How many cruise line passengers think about the impact they’re having in the places where they alight for a day or less? You can forgive them if it’s not on their radar—the executives running those cruise lines don’t seem too concerned either. When dealing with a small and fragile country like Belize, the result can be slash-and-burn tourism at its worst.

There’s a great article in National Geographic Traveler on the tense negotiations between Belize and the cruise ship industry: Shore is a Shame. Belize faces the problem many destinations have dealt with since the dawn of these floating hotels: take the lure of fast and easy money these big ship companies promise, or say no and bring in far fewer visitors each year. Unfortunately, there’s not much middle ground, with negotiations often taking a “our way or the highway” route, the cruise ships holding all the leverage.

In Belize the big issue is the harm all these huge crowds are having on formerly sparsely crowded Maya ruins sites. The industry is balking at an admission park rise to $10 (still among the lowest in the world). “That increase, Belize officials maintain, is desperately needed to better care for the same parks that receive high traffic from cruise passengers.” But “Carnival warned them that it might pull out of the country if its demands were not met.”

So the government must allow its parks to continue to be trampled by the hordes for a pittance. “The cruise line’s threat to cut back its ship visits to Belize forced the government to abandon the proposed increase in national park fees. The cruise industry may have set sail on sustainability, but it has yet to bring it into port.”

See the full story here.

Last week I attended the annual PhoCusWright travel technology conference to see what’s new and on the way. It was a blizzard of mobile apps, Facebook apps, and sites designed to ease our pain in booking travel. The Hipmunk flight booking interface actually sorts by “agony,” giving preference to the flights that are shortest and with the least stops. Unfortunately, they can’t ease our agony at U.S. airports or they’d really be making a bundle!

I sat through 32 presentations one day and lots of panel discussions on other days. Here’s what I saw that would help luxury travelers get a better travel experience. Far too many developments are limited to the U.S., so I’m only mentioning a few notable ones with options south of the border.

GroundLink says they can set you up with a car and driver “any place in the world that has a stoplight.” I love the appeal of this and can see where it would make great sense on say, a trip to Peru. With one stop you can set up a driver in multiple cities and only have to deal with (and pay) one company that has the relationships in place. If you’re sure you want a stretch, try Limos.com too.

MileBlaster is one of three mileage/points-related sites that presented info. It’s designed to help you keep up with all your frequent flier mile programs and then help you maximize your miles to get the most out of them. It focuses on key goals like getting bonuses, whether a flight will get you to elite status, and what’s about to expire. There’s a fee, but it’s only $10 a year and there’s a nifty iPhone app too.

LuxuryLink presented at the conference and I see consistently good deals on there, both from auctions and from regular luxury hotel packages. I know quite a few travelers who use them regularly when their plans are flexible. Also on this “private sale” panel was Jetsetter. I don’t personally know anyone who has used this service yet, but I’ll try to check it out soon to see if there’s anything from Latin America.

A new entrant to this space is OffandAway, a fun site where you can bid on a nice suite at a luxury hotel and if you don’t win, you can apply the money to a regular room or another auction. It’s a bit complicated and you have to put some skin in the game ahead of time, but you could end up with an awesome score. They have Mexico properties and one winner scored three nights at Casa Dorada in Los Cabos for under $100. This is quite a nice hotel (I had lunch there once) and the terraces have amazing views of the harbor and arch.

Have you tried any of these services? If so, let us know how it went!

Every year when the big travel magazines publish their readers’ polls, I feel even better about the service we’re providing here at Luxury Latin America. Not because sometimes our picks are on their lists, but because I see how laughably out of whack these polls can be.

I know they’re a joke for two reasons.

1) If you’ve ever actually gone in and tried to fill out one of these polls from Travel & Leisure or Conde Nast Traveler, you know that’s two hours of your life you’ll never get back. So the people who travel enough to really know what’s best – the ones who have really stayed at five or six hotels in the same city to evaluate them in comparison to each other – are not going to take their valuable time to do these surveys.

2) There’s a huge amount of ballot stuffing going on. The people who DO take all that time to fill these out often have a vested interest in the outcome. Whoever can assemble the biggest team of voters will win, or at least rank highly. That explains why so many resort are rated close to perfect. Not even counting all the “Please vote for us” pleading I get in my e-mail box each year, I’ve gotten the dirt from close friends who used to do PR for hotels. In many PR firms and hotel chains, every employee gets a subscription to the magazines at their house so they can vote for their clients in the annual polls. Sure, some famous places can rank highly without this help, but it’s much harder: the equivalent of an indie rock darling band winning at the Grammys. (Yes, music companies ballot-stuff too: I spent seven years as one of the stuffers.)

Many of this year’s top hotels in the Conde Nast Traveler Reader’s Choice Awards are just simply baffling. The “top hotels in Mexico” is a list that most of my well-traveled writers would take one look at and laugh. Las Mañanitas in Cuernavaca is nice, and sometime in the next few months we’ll finally get around to reviewing it, but there are at least 30 better city hotels in Mexico than that. Many guests consider it overpriced and overhyped for what you really get. Villa Premiere in Puerto Vallarta #2? J.W. Marriott in Mexico City #3? No way. Hats off to their get out the vote campaigns.

The resort choices are not as baffling though, so here are the top 5 with links to our reviews. In my view you could shuffle the order of these five and it would still be a good list: all of them are top-notch places to stay, with great service and facilities. The list starts falling apart when you get down further though, so I’m stopping here.

One&Only Palmilla, Los Cabos

Maroma Resort and Spa, Riviera Maya

Esperanza, Cabo San Lucas

Four Seasons Punta Mita, Nayarit

Las Ventanas al Paraíso , Los Cabos

I’m not going to go into the Central and South America results—there are fewer head-scratchers on those lists, especially for resorts. If you want to see all the results from every part of the world, follow this link.

Take a look at a few places you know well. How do these match up to your experience?

You can read all kinds of predictions on where the travel market is headed this year, but just as economists and weather forecasters can keep their job while still being wrong half the time, most of these writers have just a smidgen more forecasting ability than you do. With everyone waiting later to book and the prime spring break vacation season not upon us yet, it’s hard for anyone to know how this year will go in the luxury travel world.

I like this post from the blog of an upscale travel PR agency I’ve met with before, KWE Group: 2010’s Upside-Down Pyramid: All Hail King Consumer. Among the big themes are a marketing message that’s easy to understand, authenticity, customization, and quality that’s worth paying for—at the right price.

It’s geared to those serving you rather than you the traveler, but I think you’ll probably recognize some factors that are driving your travel decisions and I’d love to hear your thoughts on how the industry is doing. Forget airlines, we know most of them are lost causes. But have the high-end hotels you’ve stayed with or the tour companies you’ve hired been making the right adjustments in these turbulent times?