How We Work
You tell us as much as possible about yourselves and your objectives for your luxury New Zealand trip, then we make some suggestions. Based on your responses to those suggestions, we either ask some more questions or develop a draft itinerary. That draft is then tweaked or completely reworked until you are totally happy, after which we invoice for a deposit. The remainder is invoiced some weeks before arrival.
We start being useful in terms of providing basic custom product around NZ$1,500 per couple per day (US$1000). This allows reasonable 4 star accommodation, a rental car and an activity, roughly. At the 5 star level, costs start from around NZ$2,500 per couple per day (US$1500). Our world famous top lodges often go for NZ$2,000 to NZ$8,000 per room per night depending on the lodge and the room. The destination is not cheap and high-end accommodation costs seem to be increasing rapidly.
Once in-country we are in touch with you, pre-emptively managing weather, rescheduling, adding, cancelling etc. It's a comprehensive service when it comes to one of our luxury trips to New Zealand . You are supported via a WhatsApp chatroom which gives you access to your itinerary manager and a senior concierge.
During the planning phase, we discuss multiple different properties and activities in a transparent way. Costs are made available to you for each line item. Our style is more as a consultant sitting alongside you to guide you as to the impact of your decisions. On a number of occasions we have also created special one-off experiences for clients.
A large part of our uniqueness when it comes to New Zealand luxury trips is in the unique activities we offer. These are often not available to the public except through us. These have been developed based on 20 years of leading high-end tourism in New Zealand and incorporate very special people, places and activities.
In addition, our team invests time in travelling the country multiple times a year, keeping our know-how and our relationships current. We know what we're offering and we know why we don't offer some things.
All the above means we charge a management fee of 8.5% to handle an itinerary as we spend a lot of time planning your luxury New Zealand trip. We have been charging this (based on a previous client's suggestion) for almost 20 years now to a growing clientele. Funnily enough, when we have been in a competitive quote situation at times with other firms who don't admit to such fees, we have often found ourselves coming in cheaper than their quote.