Walpole: How has the international luxury visitor profile changed? And what has that meant for your business?
Nicola Butler: We focus mainly on US and Canadian visitors to the UK, Ireland, Paris and Normandy. The profile of our guests is shifting to a younger, well-educated demographic, and there are more families and multigenerational groups travelling together. The age of the children has got younger, too. Ten to 15 years ago the children used to be 13 or 14 years old. Pre-COVID, the average age was around eight. And now it’s babes in arms upwards. I had a group of friends last year who all flew in on a private jet and there were eight babies among them.
While clearly there is more wealth among younger people in the US than there was, there is a generational thing going on here also. We are more worldly than our parents and grandparents. There is a confidence about travelling that just wasn’t there in the same way 30 years ago.
The shift in profile means we not only have to train our teams to manage logistics like the need for multiple cars with various sized car seats, but we also have to guide the guests themselves on what to expect from some of the types of experience we offer. ‘Behind the scenes at the Changing of the Guard’ is a different experience if you have a toddler in tow for example, than if your children are eight or ten years old.
What attracts international luxury visitors to London now?
London has everything for everyone – it has architecture, history, art, culture, theatre, food and royalty. It offers the traditional and the modern in equal measure. For example, in the City you have Roman ruins and a seventh-century church just down the road from iconic modern architecture like The Shard.
It is a great base from which to explore Europe. Often we find that parents are introducing their children to Europe with London and the UK as the first stop. They enjoy the ease of it – knowing the language, a sense of familiarity, having seen it on TV as the location in the films they watch, through reading about it in school. We’re able to bring it all to life for them. Parents want to show their kids the world. And they engage them in the process of choosing and planning it.
It’s not just TV and film that are driving visits to certain locations – theatre is, too. Six has done amazingly well for the Tudors. All age groups love it. Hampton Court Palace has had a huge resurgence as a result.
Food and gastronomic experiences are now a massive draw. And London’s offer is world-class. Guests research more about food than they do about Westminster Abbey. They now say to me, “I want to experience this chef”. That didn’t happen ten years ago. And they absolutely love our tradition of afternoon tea.
How have you evolved your offer?
We have had to talk to our partners and the experiences we work with on evolving to fit the new type of guest. We used to put a minimum age on the Changing of the Guard tour and we don’t now.
A year ago, we created ‘Room 58’ with the Churchill War Rooms, a room that we’ve filled with all things 1940. It makes the visit tangible. Children nowadays don’t have the same connection with war-time history. You can’t touch anything in the rest of the War Rooms, but we created a space where our clients can try on siren suits and hats, use typewriters, talk into a microphone and it talks back in 1940s style. And it’s exclusive to us.
It’s all about unique immersive experiences that create memories and doing it in an easy way. People used to tour for eight hours a day. Now it’s typically two to four hours. When designing a journey, we make sure it’s interactive, tangible, has educational and fun elements, and that we’re creating value for time.
What about shopping?
In our experience, the lack of tax-free shopping is not putting people off coming to London. They might save a couple of things for when they go to Paris, but they still want to explore the big shops and find items they can’t find in the US. Fortnum & Mason, Selfridges, Harrods; small designer boutique shops in Marylebone. They want to go to Portobello Road to get an antique. Our guests are also picking up on English designers like Moloh and want to go to see brands in the Cotswolds.
What other aspects are important for them?
I’ve seen a marked change in how American guests behave when travelling. Ten years ago, they wanted to be seen. There was a flashier tone behind their motivation for travel: “Look at me, I am behind the rope. I am behind the glass.” This has really changed. They still want to be in the exclusive enclosure at Royal Ascot, but they won’t shout about it in the same way. It’s more about a sense of belonging and having a special immersive experience that makes them feel like a local – Royal Ascot yes, but also pulling a pint behind the bar in a London pub.
