Every year a fresh crop of luxury travel trends gets repackaged in the trade press. Most of them are noise. Below are the six that matter for 2026 - changes we are seeing in actual ZOMA bookings, week over week, across more than thirty markets. Where the data is firm we have included it; where it is anecdotal we have flagged it. The point is not to be a trend report. It is to help you decide what to book before everyone else does.
Slow travel is now the default brief
The single biggest shift in our 2026 client briefs is duration. The seven-night, two-stop trip - the dominant shape of luxury travel for the last twenty years - is being replaced by the ten-to-fourteen-night, one-or-two-stop format. Across our 2026 bookings to date, average trip length is up 22 percent versus 2024, and the share of trips with three or more hotel changes has dropped from 38 percent to 21 percent.
The reasons are partly logistical (jet lag and airport friction are worse than they were five years ago) and partly philosophical. Clients are saying explicitly that they want to feel the place rather than tick it off. Properties have responded - longer-stay rates, multi-week immersive programs (Aman Tokyo's Stay Five Pay Four extending to seven nights, Soneva's two-week discovery packages), and resorts that have rebuilt their amenity calendars around guests who stay long enough to settle.
For travellers planning a single big trip in 2026: lengthen it. A ten-night stay at one well-chosen resort is almost always a better experience than a seven-night trip across two.
Longevity retreats are the new wellness
The wellness category has bifurcated. Traditional spa-and-yoga programs are now table stakes at almost any property above USD 800 per night. The growth category is longevity - week-long, clinically structured programs that combine diagnostic testing (blood panels, VO2 max, body composition), guided fitness, nutrition protocols, IV therapy, and traditional modalities (cold therapy, hyperbaric oxygen, red light, infrared sauna).
The flagship properties in this space are Lanserhof at the Arts Club London, SHA Wellness in Mexico and Spain, Clinique La Prairie in Switzerland and Bali, Chenot at L'Albereta and Weggis, Joali Being in the Maldives, and the new Aman Wellness program at Aman Tokyo. Stays are typically seven nights, USD 1,800 to 4,500 per person per night all-in, and book six to nine months ahead.
Our 2026 longevity bookings are up 64 percent year-over-year. The category is the single fastest-growing line in our service mix.
Expedition cruising is taking share from traditional small-ship
The expedition cruising category - 100 to 250-guest ice-class or expedition-rated ships running itineraries in Antarctica, the Arctic, Galapagos, Kimberley coast, and the high-latitude Pacific - is the most interesting development in cruising in a generation. Operators like Ponant, Silversea, Scenic Eclipse, Lindblad-National Geographic and the new Aman at Sea have collectively added significant tonnage in the last 24 months.
The case for expedition over traditional luxury cruise is simple: fewer guests, more time off the ship, naturalist-led excursions, and itineraries that are genuinely difficult to do any other way. Antarctica peninsula bookings for the November 2026 to March 2027 season are up 40 percent on the equivalent week last year. Northwest Passage charters (Ponant Le Commandant Charcot and the Scenic Eclipse II) are sold out for 2026.
Lead time matters here. Antarctica suites at the top operators (Ponant Owners' Suites, Scenic Eclipse penthouses) are typically gone twelve to fifteen months out. Book by January for the following season.
The staffed villa is back
Pandemic-era demand for private accommodation was supposed to fade. It has not. Bookings for fully-staffed private villas - the format with a dedicated chef, butler, housekeeping, often a driver and a property manager - are running 35 percent above 2019 levels across our portfolio. The hot markets are Mustique (where almost every villa is staffed), Mallorca's Tramuntana, Tuscany, the south of France, and the Greek islands.
The math holds when you compare per-person rather than per-villa pricing. A USD 12,000 per night fully-staffed villa for eight people works out to USD 1,500 per person per night, which is below the cost of two adjoining suites at any top-tier hotel in the same destination. For multigenerational and friend-group trips, the staffed villa is now the default rather than the exception.
The destinations gaining ground
The places our clients are flying to that they were not twelve months ago: Saudi Arabia (the new Habitas AlUla and Banyan Tree AlUla, Six Senses Southern Dunes); Mongolia (Three Camel Lodge and the Nomadic Expeditions ger camps); the lesser-known Greek islands (Folegandros, Kythnos, Tinos); Bhutan (post-Six Senses circuit completion and the second Aman expansion); the Mozambique-Bazaruto archipelago (Kisawa Sanctuary and the new Marlin Beach property); and Patagonia (Awasi and Explora's deeper southern expansion).
The places that are quieter than they were: Mykonos peak summer (down notably as repeat clients move to Paros and Antiparos), the Hamptons (down for the third year running), and parts of Bali outside Ubud and the southern Bukit.
What to book before it gets harder
Three specific calls for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. First: the top suites at the new pre-opening hotels - Aman Niseko, Rosewood Amalfi Coast, Six Senses Telluride, Capella Maldives. Pre-opening pricing is gone within months of public soft-launch, often replaced by 30 to 50 percent increases.
Second: shoulder-season high-end safari (May-June and November in Southern Africa, January-February in East Africa). The rate-to-experience ratio in these windows is the best it has been in years, and the camps are filling earlier each cycle.
Third: 2027 Antarctica. The expedition fleet is largely committed for the next two seasons; if Antarctica is on the list for the next three years, the conversation needs to start before mid-2026.
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