Experiences are becoming more and more extreme.
This was the main message from International Luxury Travel Market (ILTM), the biggest show of its kind. In the first week of last December, over 4,000 interested parties gathered as always in Cannes to discuss the state of the industry, do business, and share what is new in the world of top-end hospitality.
Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi is always up to something. Since opening in mid-2019, it has long offered haute cuisine dining, treetop in seven bamboo pods, with—down at ground level—a wine cellar that deliberately looks mediaeval rather than twenty-first century. But as with all luxury lifestyle, this resort continuously evolves. Its latest addition is the exclusive “flying dress photoshoot”—ladies and gents, choose your favourite colour and don a gown that billows in artificially induced wind.
If the element of air speaks to you, the ultimate experience could well be floating on the edge of space. Yes, it’s possible. During a six-hour trip in a climate-controlled pressurised Space Lounge, with cocktails and WiFi to livestream back down to earth, you’re lifted to 100,000 feet for stunning panoramic views.
Equally adventurous, in a different way, you can go for a walk in Rwandan rainforest wilderness that goes back millions of years. You, among mahogany trees, giant ferns, unbelievably beautiful orchids, and, of course, gorillas. One&Only Nyungwe House is your base for this one.
Sights, sounds, and all the senses come to the fore. To do a potted PhD in Indian art, head to The Imperial New Delhi. Aim a device at any of the 5,000-plus heritage artworks—mostly Anglo-Indian and all priceless—and Google Lens will pick it up to allow full details. You’ll be able to impress, for instance, with knowledge of Regency landscape artist Thomas Daniell and his nephew William.
If, by contrast, it is Australian contemporary art that excites, Sydney is your spot. The Art Gallery of New South Wales opens an extension, the Sydney Modern, designed by Pulitzer architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. One area, The Tank, is a conversion of a WWII naval bunker.
For a foodie special, Four Seasons The Nam Hai suggests a staggered Vietnamese meal, moving from course-to-course riding pillion on 1960s Vespas. After aperitifs at An Bang Beach’s Shore Club, ride on for Hải Đảo pancakes, then dumplings at White Rose, chicken rice at Cơm Gà An Hiền, and end with Mót Hội An’s sweet soup. No energy? Head for the hotel spa’s Five Elements Bodywork, introduced in December 2022 to balance mind and being. Energy enough? Play a round on the Colin Montgomerie course, only eight minutes away.
At Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort in northern Thailand, there’s big demand for the three transparent PVC jungle bubbles, separated by an invisible electric fence from elephants. All-inclusive and ensuite, the largest suite, 300 yards from other bubbles, is, at 2,800 square feet, ideal for four, or for honeymooners to spread out. This bubble has a butler-chef-concierge on hand 24/7.
In Israel’s rose-hued Negev Desert, Six Senses Shaharut has 360-degree hilltop views of space—not another building in sight. A lifetime experience here is taking a day trip to that perfect, pink-rock-cut city, Petra in Jordan, and back home for a best-ever spa massage and dinner in the Wine Cellar. At another bucket-lister, The Brando, on its own island in French Polynesia, take a professionally guided environmental tour—as eye-opening as Galapagos—of one of the 12 nearby uninhabited islands that Marlon Brando’s family also own. Yes, it is non-stop sensual experiences for the Robb Report rover.
The oceanfront of Cannes was certainly one hubbub of the senses during ILTM, the sights of beach life and the sounds of joie de vivre. Nestled up to the beach wall is one long line of restaurants, opening to the sand but buffered with windbreaks, Bordeaux burners, and stoles—cashmere, of course—for chilly weather. At Plage Goeland, where sometimes only a concierge can get a table, all main courses are preceded by a sharing board, tuna ceviche through to barely visible fried whitebait. The two top Croisette hotels—Martinez, part of Hyatt’s Unbound Collection, and The Carlton—have private piers with their beach clubs.
Come March, The Carlton will awaken from a three-year hibernation to find it is now rebranded as Regent. During its sleep, the C-shaped building has been gutted and expanded, with longer arms that embrace what is now a splendid semi-tropical garden with an Olympic-length pool, heated year-round. It’s the interior that is the real wow. Designer Tristan Auer is one of those daring Frenchmen who makes statements: the entire ground floor has been opened up to allow vision from west to east, uninterrupted. Dominating the centre are four giant, multi-level Murano chandeliers in pink (think flamingos hanging from the ceiling). There will be a Mediterranean restaurant, inside and out, and one celebrating the cuisine of Turkey east of the Bosphorus, and, of course, a bar for yet another chilled Whispering Angel or a flute of Salon. Look up—the bar’s chandelier is even more playful, a white dazzler with haphazard bright red, or blue, addenda.
Regent followers will, as in Hong Kong, generally opt for a view over water. At the Carlton, the best number is 131, directly above the front door. All bedrooms are indeed barely off-white, with terracotta open-trellis lines on the carpet as a reminder that Cannes claims to have invented the idea of playing tennis on clay courts rather than grass. Auer has continued the terracotta to leather wraps for coffee makers and some of the bathroom items stored, unusually, on wall-set shelving, painted palest lemon.
This is Cannes charm, which the mayor, David Lisnard, is enhancing with a redesigned Croisette. He’s raising the plinth of luxury lifestyle even higher. A five-minute walk west of The Carlton, that section of the street is crammed side-by-gilded-side, Gucci through to YSL via a show-stopping two-floor Dior. In the past, Marilyn Monroe paraded, she of a shorter flying skirt. Today, the uniform for the eternally ageless is more likely to be statement flats, with the most minimalist skirt that says “non” to a single degree of bending over. Vive la France.
