John Clifford in San Diego runs International Travel Management and has expertise with LGBTQ+ travel. His client base spends around 10,000 euros a day, or about US$11,180, on the trip’s basics, before bolting on private experiences – such as a tour of the Vatican without crowds – that cost between 10,000 and 15,000 euros each.

Edward Granville runs Red Savannah, a London firm that works with wealthy travellers worldwide. The average trip he books costs around £35,000, or about US$45,000, though many cost more than double that amount, and he’s regularly booking million-dollar jaunts.

We asked these travel professionals to share the secrets of where and how the richest one per cent are holidaying in summer 2023.

Newest trend: “surf-and-turf travel”

“We’re doing so many more yachts than we did before the pandemic, and they’re bigger and better as well – the budget has changed from, perhaps, US$25,000 per week to up to US$90,000,” Granville told us, citing the new Galapagos-based Aqua Mare as a prime example.

“I’ve just spent £140,000 on a yacht with six suites – they want to go and stay on a Greek island, then do something totally bespoke at the end,” she said. “It’s the element of getting away from people: having amazing accommodation and food, every toy you’d want, and you don’t have to share it with anyone.”

Clifford said he’s regularly booking charters this summer in Europe for 75,000 euros a day. “Clients just want to do the whole thing,” he said of the Mediterranean voyages he’d organised. “We do an extended itinerary and have everything pre-planned.”

The much-repeated mantra: get away during a getaway

“It has cachet because it’s new to the market and it’s on its own island, but you really have an entire hotel to yourself, and you’re not on the mainland surrounded by other people’s villas and traffic,” he said.

Should you wish to spend an evening dancing at a beach club until dawn, you can take the island’s speedboat over for a quick visit.

“There’s a one-upmanship to it, looking back at all the mess but diving into it whenever you like. That’s probably what really gives it that X factor,” Granville said.

“We’ve got seven one percenters in Botswana this summer and another three in Namibia, and every booking is over £150,000,” she said, adding that three of these bookings were at the new 12-room high-design lodge Xigera in Botswana’s Okavango Delta.

Botswana is a favourite, she added, because the camps are smaller than in somewhere like Kenya, making buyouts more viable, and the bush teems with life.

“At Mombo, you’re blown away – turn the corner, and there are 15 leopards, 15 cheetahs, 300 elephants. In Botswana, you pay for the game,” Maury said.

The ultimate secluded holiday, though, is renting a property that isn’t even publicly available, Granville said. Take one property in Porto Heli in Greece, which is more like its own village: a seven-house complex complete with taverna and a town square. It costs US$185,000 to rent for one week from the shipping magnate who built it for himself.

“He doesn’t want it advertised or promoted,” Granville said, adding that it’s not listed on the firm’s website. “You have to be slightly vetted to even be accepted to book it.”

The favourite destination of the year: Greece

The Med remains a super-rich playground for summer. One country, though, is outpacing its rivals for bookings with these agents: Greece.

“If I had to put Italy, Spain, Greece and France in a league table this year, Greece would be winning – Italy has forever been No 1, but it’s probably No 2 now,” Granville said.

Greek travel remains island-centric, but he said that long-time mainstays, especially Mykonos, had fallen from favour, displaced by a set of up-and-comers.

Granville listed Paros as the most mentioned new destination.

“In the last year or so, when people say they want to go to Greece, it’s Paros they mention. Everyone knows Mykonos is full and a rip-off, but Paros is back to a Greece that existed before it got taken over by the party animals and beach clubs,” Granville said.

It’s a startling makeover for Paros, which, in recent years, effectively acted as a stopover for ferries sailing from Athens to other islands.

Hotels such as Cosme, Parilio and the Nobu-endorsed Avant Mar, which debuted this summer, have upgraded the accommodation options to be worthy of the richest people – another obstacle it long faced.

Maury said she’s seeing the same interest in her clients.

The White Lotus effect has caused a backlash

Don’t count Italy out entirely, though: Maury, for example, was juggling 11 simultaneous bookings in early June, all of them on the Amalfi Coast and costing at least £100,000 each.

“The Four Seasons is happy as a clam, as they’re now booked all through next year,” he said. “But for real luxury travellers, especially the top one per cent – they don’t want to be stuck anywhere with selfie-snapping children.”