A working standard
By the editorial team, Xplora Luxe — Dubai
The question comes up more often than the industry likes to admit. Someone has a trip they care about — a fortieth birthday, a wedding anniversary that matters, the first holiday since the year didn’t go to plan — and they want to hand it to a professional. They search. They find a dozen firms who all describe themselves in the same three words. And they stall, because they have no way to tell one from another.
This piece is written for that person. It is a working standard: seven questions to ask a luxury travel advisor before you engage them, and the answers you should expect. We publish it because it is also the standard we hold ourselves to.
- How do you get paid, and does it affect what you recommend?
Ask this first. A reputable advisor will answer it in one sentence. Most luxury travel firms earn a combination of supplier commissions from hotels, cruise lines and aviation partners, and planning or membership fees paid by the client. The commission model is not inherently a problem — it is how the industry has worked for decades — but the client has a right to know whether a recommendation is being made because the property suits them, or because the commission is higher.
A good advisor will tell you, without prompting, when a suggestion earns them more, and why they are still making it. A better advisor will tell you when the property that suits you best earns them nothing at all.
- What will you ask me before you suggest anything?
If the first reply you receive is a list of five-star hotels, you are in the wrong place.
The brief matters more than the answer. A serious advisor wants to know where you have stayed before and what you thought of it. Who you are travelling with. What last year’s holiday was actually for — recovery, celebration, reconnection, escape. Whether you want to be looked after, or left alone. What you will not eat, walk into, or tolerate. Whether you prefer morning arrivals or evening ones. A standard onboarding form cannot capture this. A fifteen-minute conversation usually can.
- How quickly will you reply when something goes wrong?
Destination knowledge is the minimum. The real test of an advisor is what happens at 02:00 local time when a connection is cancelled, a hotel has lost the reservation, or a private transfer is an hour late to the runway.
Ask the question directly: what is your response time in a live situation, and who picks up the phone? The answer should be specific. A named person. A single number. A response time measured in minutes, not business hours. If the advisor cannot answer this clearly, the firm is selling itineraries, not service.
- What do you refuse to do?
This sounds like an odd question. It is the most revealing one on the list.
An advisor who will arrange anything for anyone is an advisor with no point of view. Good firms decline work. They decline destinations they do not know well enough to recommend. They decline suppliers whose service has slipped. They decline clients whose expectations cannot be met at the stated budget — and they say so at the first meeting, not the fifth invoice.
Ask what the firm has recently turned down. A confident answer tells you what you are buying.
- Will you tell me when my idea is not a good idea?
The client brief is the starting point, not the destination. A client with a fixed budget and a fixed vision often has one that will not survive contact with reality — a five-night Maldives stay in peak season for a figure that works in May, a villa in Capri in August booked in July, a private jet routing that the operator will not fly.
The firm you want will say so, early and in plain terms. They will ask what you are willing to adjust before they present alternatives, because presenting alternatives first reads as a sales pitch. This is the single most common complaint from experienced luxury travellers about the advisors they leave: the feeling of being managed rather than consulted.
- What happens after the trip?
Good firms debrief. Not with a feedback form — with a conversation. What worked. What did not. Which of the preferences on file need updating. Which supplier is quietly off the list for next time. Which room at which hotel is the one you actually want on the return visit.
This is how a client file becomes useful in year two. Without it, every brief starts from zero, and the relationship never compounds.
- Who, specifically, will I be working with?
Luxury travel is a relationship business. Ask for the name of the person who will hold your account. Ask how long they have been at the firm. Ask who covers them when they are unavailable. Ask how many clients they carry at any one time — the answer tells you how much attention yours will receive.
A firm that cannot answer these questions is a firm where you are a file number. A firm that answers them without hesitation is one where you are a client.
A note on how we work
Xplora Luxe is a luxury concierge and travel design firm based in Dubai, serving clients across the UAE, the GCC, and internationally. We are happy to answer any of the seven questions above about our own practice, in writing, before you engage us. If you would like to start with a fifteen-minute conversation rather than a form, that is how we prefer it too.
Leave it with us.
