More than ever private jet travelers, or elite travelers as we like to call them, are the most lucrative market for luxury brands and service providers.  With readers spending $10,000 per hour to fly privately, the over 600,000 readers Elite Traveler reaches each issue provide you a great way to make sure your message is in front of consumers who have the money to be good customers.  With our Asia Edition, Elite Traveler Superyachts, our over 60 Elite Traveler Destination Guides at Elitetraveler.com, our global database of private jet owners and our award-winning custom marketing team, we would welcome the opportunity to be of help to you in making sure you get a bigger share of our reader spending.

With a Net Worth of more than $25 trillion, I hope you will agree elite travelers should be a key target for your marketing!

In this edition:

1. Elite Traveler Featured on Forbes.com

2. Huffington Post: UHNWs Worth Up to $32 Trillion More than We Thought

3. Reaching the Super Rich – Wherever They Are From; Wherever They Happen to Be

4. Ipsos: Mass Affluent American Focused On Job Stability

5. Oprah Winfrey on Private Jets

1. Elite Traveler featured on Forbes.com

Recently Russ Alan Prince wrote about the future of ultra-luxury for Forbes.com.

Giving sales opportunities to the Super Rich a big thumbs up, he noted, “The sales of ultra-luxury services and goods are booming. This trend is likely to continue because the number of exceptionally wealthy individuals is increasing arithmetically. More telling is that their levels of wealth are magnifying at an even greater rate.”

Commenting on the Top Suites of Paris feature in Elite Traveler’s May/June issue, Prince noted, “In Paris, The Suite Shangri-la at Shangri-la Hotel goes for $26,400 per night. Slightly less expensive is the Royal Suite at Hotel Plaza Athenee, which only costs $26,234 per night. Meanwhile, the Presidential Suite 541 at Raffles Royal Monceau is available for $26,183 per night, while the Four Seasons Hotel George V Penthouse goes for $25,760 per night.”

In an interview with luxury travel specialist Stacy Small, President of Elite Travel International,  she noted: “As our clients’ net worth increases, so too does their desire to reward their hard work with ultra-luxury travel experiences, often in private-yet-posh settings with their extended family and friends. We are seeing a continued increase in demand for multi-room, high-dollar suites as well as spacious villas.”

The article continued with a focus on high end watches, citing some of the haute timepieces featured also in our May/June issue:

“It’s not just high-end travel that is pointing to the breathtaking future of ultra-luxury; it’s the array of extraordinarily high caliber products being purchased. Let’s consider some of the finest timepieces in the world. A watch from Romain Gauthier runs $176,925 while Richard Milles’ RM 036 Tourbillon G-Sensor Jean Todt Limited Edition costs $490,000. A little more expensive is the Audemars Piguet Grand Complication Royal Oak Offshore costing $710,000 in titanium, and $756,000 in rose gold. A little higher up the scale we have Greubel Forseys’ Art Piece 1 going for $1,650,000 and The Grand Complication by A. Lange & Sohne at $2,452,710.”

In comments from one of the industry’s top timepiece retailers, “High five figure watch sales are growing, and so are watches in the high six figures into the low seven figures,” noted John Simonian, founder and CEO of Westime.  “There are several factors driving the demand. People who are watch customers now have more disposable income. In some cases, clients view the purchase of very expensive watches as a good investment today.”

Prince concluded with some comments from me:  “Last year the combined wealth of ultra-high-net-worth families increased by $566 billion, enough to buy every Swiss made watch exported for the next 28 years or every luxury hotel room and suite at every luxury hotel and resort in the world for the next decade,” explains Douglas Gollan, Editor-in-Chief and Group President of Elite Traveler Media Group.  “Their population is projected to increase by 50% in the next decade. The ability of luxury companies to provide more products and services to these consumers is only limited by how much effort they put into it. There is a lot of demand, but there is even more untapped demand.”

“Elite Traveler is a key media source for us with well over $200,000 in sales we can track directly back to our ads in your magazine over the past year.”  – Charles Krypell, Owner, Charles Krypell

2. Huffington Post: UHNWs Worth Up to $32 Trillion More than We Thought

We know they are super rich.  We also know the community of Ultra High Net Worth Families is growing – projected by Knight Frank to grow from nearly 200,000 households worldwide to 300,000 in the next decade.  We know their fortunes keep growing – in the past year by $566 billion – about the GDP of Saudi Arabia.   We know there is a wide range of estimates on how much they are worth – Wealth X says around $26 trillion and Citi Private Bank estimates $40 trillion (World GDP is about $70 trillion – so quite impressive at either number).

Now a piece from The Huffington Post follows up on articles last year that the Super Rich have as much as $10 trillion more wealth tucked away in overseas accounts.  According to the article, referencing a new study from Tax Justice Network, an advocacy group for tax transparency, the Super Rich have an additional $21 to $32 trillion in liquid wealth in off-shore accounts.  That would mean the UHNW segment’s worth would be somewhere between $47 trillion and $72 trillion.   In other words, the wealth of the 200,000 richest families in the world may be equal to the World’s annual GDP.

Interestingly it’s not tax avoidance that is driving money offshore according to the piece. The report notes, “It’s simply the growth in the offshore money industry. This offshore wealth industry has been exploding even in a period in which we have been cutting taxes.”

When we launched Elite Traveler in 2001 we identified this segment as a lucrative market for brands targeting the Super Rich to target (and a smart balance to their focus on aspirational consumers).  With BPA audited distribution to private jet travelers in over 100 countries, our annual Watch, Jewelry and Hotel guides, our exclusive twice annual Elite Traveler Superyachts – reaching these consumers aboard their yachts – and our state-of-the-art responsive technology driven website Elitetraveler.com, Elite Traveler offers an opportunity to build awareness and educate consumers about the products and services you can sell them.

With the overwhelming amount of ‘news’ and media on ‘luxury,’  Elite Traveler cuts through the clutter to reach these deep pocketed consumers when they have time to read and relax – flying on their private jets.

“From the Summer Edition of Elite Traveler Superyachts, as well as the Asia Edition including the May/June issue we are happy to report sales ($437,000) of the timekeepers we advertised”  – Patrik Hoffmann, CEO Ulysse Nardin

3. Reaching the Super Rich – Wherever They Are From; Wherever They Happen to Be

Our circulation goal is simple – “wherever they are from, wherever they happen to be,” we want to reach the world’s super rich aboard their private jets and superyachts.  One area where private jets are growing fast is Nigeria – where the current local fleet numbers 80 but projections call for as many as 500 Nigeria-based private jets by 2020.

 At the IHT Luxury Conference in Rome in November 2012, it was reported that a Nigerian visiting London was one of the top five customers for Harrods. Elite Traveler’s global distribution to private jets puts you there – with 275 BPA audited copies delivered to private jet travelers in Nigeria, we make sure wealthy consumers from around the globe get your message.

ONLY ELITE TRAVELER – Elite Traveler is the ONLY global publication targeting and reaching private jet travelers to have its circulation successfully audited

4. Ipsos: Mass Affluent American Focused On Job Stability

According to a regular newsletter by researcher Ipsos (producer of the Mendelsohn/MMR Affluent survey), “The issue agenda of Americans has remained focused on unemployment/jobs over the last three years.”

As we know, job concerns are a major hold-back to the sale of luxury goods and services.  The report went on, “Although unemployment/jobs dominance has decreased recently, the top three issue concerns among Americans include unemployment/jobs (48%), healthcare (36%), and taxes (30%).

“Americans and our Canadian neighbors share the same top three issue concerns – unemployment/jobs, healthcare and taxes. Interestingly, select other countries (UK, France, Germany, Brazil and Japan) also have some similar top issue concerns. For example, all selected countries in this study except Brazil share unemployment/jobs as one of their top three issues: France (71%), UK (49%), US (48%), Japan (48%), Canada (39%) and Germany (33%). Here is a breakdown of the top issue by country:

Brazil – Healthcare (63%)

Canada – Healthcare (41%)

France- Unemployment/jobs (71%)

Germany – Poverty and social inequality (58%)

Japan- Unemployment/jobs (48%)

UK – Unemployment/jobs (49%)

US – Unemployment/jobs (48%)

“Again this year Elite Traveler continues to be our #1 source for reservations generating close to $1 million in bookings from your readership of private jet travelers”  – Sean Emmerton, Villas del Mar

5. Oprah Winfrey on Private Jets

“That is what makes me feel successful. Of all the wonderful things that have happened, including getting a doctorate, an honorary doctorate from Duke, what really makes me feel successful is being able to use my life in service to someone else’s… and it is really fantastic to have your own jet, and anybody who says it isn’t is lying to you. That jet thing is really good.”

– Oprah Winfrey, in a May 10, 2009 commencement address at DukeUniversity.

All the best,

Douglas D. Gollan Group President and Editor-in-Chief Elite Traveler, the private jet lifestyle magazine Elite Traveler Superyachts, the superyacht lifestyle magazine Elite Traveler Asia, Asia’s private jet lifestyle magazine Elitetraveler.com, the private jet lifestyle online Elite Traveler Update, our weekly e-Newsletter to private jet owners worldwide

Elite Traveler (audited by BPA Worldwide) is the only audited publication delivered to global locations for private jet travelers.  We have global distribution in over 100 countries aboard private jets and in private jet terminals. Each issue is read by over 630,000 Ultra Affluent consumers with an Average Household Income of $5.3 million (Source: Prince & Associates, 2011)

www.elitetraveler.com/business

Doug.Gollan@elitetraveler.com Elite Traveler Magazine 708 Third Avenue, 10th Floor New York, NY 10017   USA