This is what a $10m holiday looks like
Catering to billionaires, niche travel agencies will build sets, hire actors and write continent-spanning story lines – for the right price.
American travel agent Ricardo Araujo prides himself on “making the impossible possible”. But finding a mermaid at short notice was a stretch, even for him. Araujo had spent 10 months planning a cruise inspired by Homer’s The Odyssey, when his client – the elderly patriarch of a wealthy US family – requested a surprise for his nine-year-old granddaughter.
After finding an actor with superlative swimming skills, Araujo sneaked her on to the yacht early in the trip. A few days later, as the girl and her mother prepared to depart for a submarine excursion near the Italian island of Capri, Araujo gave the green light. With a rescue team on standby, the tail-clad performer hit the water. The submarine set off and, on cue, took a sharp turn, revealing a “mermaid” gliding by.
“How many people can say they saw a real mermaid?” says Araujo. The price for the client, including the submarine rental, was $US350,000 ($535,000), a sizeable chunk of the $US2.5m holiday. (Never mind that the Odyssey’s Sirens were not ethereal mermaids, as in modern portrayals, but terrifying bird-women.)
Araujo’s company, Ariodante, in business since 2016, is one of a few niche travel agencies that cater to royalty and billionaires seeking the most immersive travel experience possible and it charges from $US250,000 to upwards of $US10m to orchestrate a single vacation.
These agencies say they can offer something rarer than run-of-the-mill luxury; the chance to step into a cinematic adventure that casts travellers as the heroes in their own journeys. For Ariodante’s clients who don’t require a glimpse of a mermaid, this can mean an overnight stay in Louis XIV’s bed, dinner with a descendant of Picasso, or a murder-mystery cruise that includes a vast wardrobe of 1920s-inspired haute couture.
The wealthy travellers who undertake such rarefied adventures tend to be very private and some require nondisclosure agreements. No clients agreed to be interviewed for this story, but Allison London, who works at a venture-capital firm in Palo Alto, California, says she has worked with another agency, Based on a True Story, to create an experience for one of her colleagues and his family: a day-long treasure hunt through the streets of London.
“From the very beginning to the very end, there were all these little surprises and delights,” she says, recalling puzzles, clues and recurring characters, played by actors. “They’ve gone to London a million times but they’ve never seen London like this.” The price? “Not for the faint of heart,” she says.
I think it’s about bragging rights these days
A typical holiday created by Based on a True Story can reach Hollywood levels of production. Using an in-house creative team that includes former movie industry insiders, the company can write original scripts, build one-off sets and hire entire casts of actors. Add on the cost of private jets, superyachts, celebrity cameos, professional photographers and extensive reconnaissance, and the most elaborate trips can easily reach $US10m – akin to the budget of an indie film. The company, in operation since 2005, produces between 12 and 20 trips a year, says Niel Fox, Based on a True Story’s chief executive.
“All guests should feel like they’ve done something that nobody else has ever done before,” says Fox. “Everybody they encounter is in a mythological world or suddenly they arrive and they’re in the middle of some high-octane mission or a true-crime scenario.”
Based on a True Story trips often involve theatrical flourishes that blur reality and fantasy, and can span weeks. For a $US2.5m honeymoon, the company says it sent one couple on a superyacht cruise through the Caribbean, where they followed clues to recover stolen jewels from a colonial governor. Another trip began with a set of keys that “unlocked” different storylines around the world: a Renaissance-themed party in Rome and a Snow White-inspired fairy tale in Aspen.
Occasionally, a customer’s request goes too far, even for a company accustomed to saying yes. “Once I got a Russian guy whose big dream was to detonate a nuclear bomb,” says Araujo. Ariodante politely turned him away.
Outlandish requests aside, critics might find it morally questionable to spend such huge sums of money on a single holiday. “It seems a bit distasteful to us, but if it does leave money in the destination … that’s really powerful,” says Juliet Kinsman, founder of Bouteco, a London-based non-profit consultancy with a focus on sustainability in the travel sector.
Fox says Based on a True Story often works with local partners to incorporate donations into the trip budget and to suggest charitable causes for its clients. For a yacht cruise down the Amazon, for example, Fox says the team partnered with a Peruvian conservation organisation to identify a local Indigenous group to support.
When a trip’s bill hits seven figures though, it’s perhaps safe to assume that the primary motivation is something far more elusive than philanthropy. “The richer you are and the more privilege you have, the harder it is to experience true luxury, which by definition is rare,” says Kinsman. “I think it’s about bragging rights these days, isn’t it? It’s being able to say, ‘I did this, but you can’t do that’.”
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
