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Post-pandemic travel: Why ultra-wealthy tourists are paying for 'art holidays'
These getaways combine the best of art and travel and ooze luxury and exclusivity
It’s been five years since the COVID-19 pandemic first rampaged through the world, but it continues to be credited – and blamed – for, what appears to be, long-lasting changes in the way we live, think, function and even travel.
People emerged from its rigid lockdowns with an increased appetite for experience-based vacations that don’t feel like a tick-box exercise. So in recent years, ‘art holidays’ have become popular among wealthy individuals, say experts who operate in the high-end travel and lifestyle sector.
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For the elite, who have the luxury of treating the world as their private playground, this means having access to the inaccessible — their itineraries are choc-a-bloc with after-hours, night-time tours of world-famous museums and art galleries, private viewings of masterpieces in collectors’ homes and luxurious stays at dreamy boutique art hotels with their families, including children, in an effort to introduce them to that rarefied world early.
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“Travel and art really are the two top talking points,” says Daisy Marchant, director of private memberships at luxury lifestyle management service Quintessentially, via Google Meet. While onboarding new members, Marchant often asks them about their passion points and “99.9 per cent of the time”, it’s art.
For their top tier members, the team of lifestyle managers can arrange access to gallery pre-openings that have very limited guests, VIP preview passes to mega art fairs like Art Basel, entry into events with carefully vetted guests lists as well as meet-and-greets with artists. “We’ve just had Frieze London happening and they had an amazing after-hours party at Soho House for which our members were hand-selected to attend,” explains Marchant. “We did a really cool visit with Sasha Jafri at his private gallery on Alserkal Avenue - there were about 20 members and he offered an intimate access to his work and creative process, for about two and a half hours.”
It’s common knowledge that high-value art offers wealthy individuals a potent combination of financial, social and cultural capital. It’s a sound investment and can also help them break into elite social circles that are carefully composed of like-minded people. “I had a new client recently who wanted to make a healthy donation to the Louvre because he had just relocated here,” says Marchant. “He knew that by doing so, it would get him within the right kind of social scene as well.” It’s a kind of “social currency”, she continues, and is a marker of intellect, taste and, of course, wealth.
But these ‘art holidays’, add experts, aren’t just about smart art purchases - they’re about really understanding and enjoying the art itself.
Ben Murtagh, General Manager of Usturiun Luxury Travel observes that such clients have begun to skip larger, more well-known museums and galleries in exchange for exclusive viewings of private collections. “The largest number of Monets, for instance, are privately owned and people want to see where they are and understand how they ended up there. It’s not just about the actual work of art, but it’s also about the story,” he says, when we chat.
These professionals work like new-age fairy godmothers, with contact books and direct access to the right people in the right places. “It’s about knowing people in very high places who we can call directly, to help us with these requests,” says Marchant. So, for instance, even though Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is yet to open its doors, their team is already looking at who they need to know in order to get access to the opening party and the launch.
“The whole experience has to be luxurious,” she says, describing such holidays and activities. “Clients have to be greeted by someone very senior there, who will walk them around. And it’s really all hands on deck when we get a request like that.”
For the love of travel, art and luxury
Organising a private tour of the Louvre Museum in Paris or the Taj Mahal in Agra is a pretty common request. Marchant says in Egypt, where a trip to the Egyptian Museum is oft-requested by travellers, they organise tours with “famous Egyptologists, or people who have their own Netflix shows.” They also work with many haute couture brands for “exclusive, behind-the-scenes experiences at their maisons, involving atelier tours, craftsmanship access and previews of pieces in production.” “These experiences usually align with key events such as fashion weeks, major art fairs or high fashion gala dinners, like Met Gala,” she adds. “And each one is tailored to the member’s interests and the partnerships we have at that moment.”
Murtagh explains that they don’t really say no to anything. “If you turn around and go, “I love Picasso”, okay, wonderful. We can go to the Picasso Museum. Let’s go to the town he grew up in. Or let’s take it a step further and meet someone in his family, or go to the largest private collection of Picassos that is not available in public.”
He recalls planning a trip for a client, who wanted to take a break from feeling like “the weight of the world was on his shoulders”. He wanted to go to Jamaica and paint, just like Winston Churchill did in 1953. “He wanted to stay where Churchill stayed and do everything that he did,” explains Murtagh. Today, he chases sunsets around the world and paints them in the local artistic traditions of each country he visits.
Another client requested a private tour of the Sistine Chapel during the ongoing Jubilee Year 2025 to get a deeper understanding of the techniques that Michelangelo used to create the iconic ceiling frescoes. “He wanted to understand the hows,” he says. Murtagh worried about pulling it off but an acquaintance suggested that his aunt, an art teacher who had specialised in renaissance fresco art, conduct the tour. She did, and it was a hit. “They went for dinner later that evening and they met up again the next day. And now, they are planning another trip to Rome,” he says.
The buzzing regional art scene
Thea Kearse of Butterfly Social, a concierge services provider, says people often ask her about the kind of requests that she gets from travellers. “Every day, everything is so different,” she smiles. Kearse says they have also organised trips both here in the region and abroad as well. “We have put together unique things, like exclusive nights with artists whose works have been purchased by celebrities,” she says, adding that they work very closely with Tabari Artspace Contemporary Art Gallery which supports regional artists.
The UK and France continue to lure wealthy art and architecture lovers from across the world - requests for VIP access to shows at Grand Palais in Paris like Art Basel Paris, tours of art galleries like the National Portrait Gallery in London and of castles like Balmoral Castle in Scotland are quite popular - but experts say that places like Japan, Thailand, Shanghai, Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia have also grabbed attention. The region’s art scene is thriving, with Art Basel Qatar and the first edition of Frieze Abu Dhabi scheduled for next year, the creation of cultural hotspots like the Museum of the Future, Louvre and the forthcoming Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi, and other ongoing events like Art Dubai among many others. And increasingly, travellers are combining leisure or business trips with local art events and activities for a richer, more rounded experience.
While the types of requests may vary, ‘art holidays’ are here to stay, say experts. “Everyone wants to lay on a beach at some point but I think people are looking for a little bit more than that,” says Murtagh. “Travelling with purpose is a huge thing now – if I analysed every trip, every activity that my clients do, there’s purpose. And I think art is always up there.”
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