most
pitch-perfect travel
marketing campaigns of the past year is from Viking River Cruises,
whose James Bond-accented narrator caresses you through the exclusive
experience of getting “closer to iconic landmarks, to local life, and
cultural treasures”. By the time the ad closes with a panoramic twilight
view of the Hungarian Parliament, I usually already have my American Express AXP -0.64% card in my hand. Before my wife slaps it back into my money clip.
The brilliance of Viking’s ad is how it captures the modern lust for experiential travel. It used to be enough just to ‘go there’. Now it’s all about how close you can get—literally. Intimacy is luxury travel’s new gold standard. Which is why the over-the-water bungalow, or palafitos, is a masterstroke.
Palafitos (a.k.a. stilt or pile houses) are architecturally
nothing new, but they weren’t traditionally designed to get closer to
the water. They were common in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages in Slovenia
and Austria to elevate their inhabitants from rats, and provided
additional shaded workspace underneath for critical tasks like, say,
carving a club. In South America along the Amazon and Orinoco rivers
they served the same function as they do in New Orleans and the Florida
Keys today—namely keeping your home from ending a mile upstream in a
pile of match sticks when the next Category 5 storm surge steamrolls
through.
French Polynesia, including Tahiti, Bora Bora, and Mo’orea, was and still is ground zero for pioneering the modern day palafitos resort experience. Major global hotel brands like Hilton, St. Regis, InterContinental, Le Meridien, Sofitel, and various other boutique operators have all piled in. In 2008, the Four Seasons Bora Bora set a new bar defining the luxury over-the-water vacation experience. The hotel was named the #1 resort in French Polynesia by Conde Nast in 2012, and TripAdvisor recently named it the #1 Hotel for Romance in the World.
The problem is getting there. The typical economy round trip ticket from LAX to Bora Bora will set you back around $1900 taking an average of 22 hours (and three flights) each way. If you live in New York or Washington D.C., you can add six hours in both directions and another $800 per ticket.
The brilliance of Viking’s ad is how it captures the modern lust for experiential travel. It used to be enough just to ‘go there’. Now it’s all about how close you can get—literally. Intimacy is luxury travel’s new gold standard. Which is why the over-the-water bungalow, or palafitos, is a masterstroke.
Courtesy of Karisma Hotels & Resorts
French Polynesia, including Tahiti, Bora Bora, and Mo’orea, was and still is ground zero for pioneering the modern day palafitos resort experience. Major global hotel brands like Hilton, St. Regis, InterContinental, Le Meridien, Sofitel, and various other boutique operators have all piled in. In 2008, the Four Seasons Bora Bora set a new bar defining the luxury over-the-water vacation experience. The hotel was named the #1 resort in French Polynesia by Conde Nast in 2012, and TripAdvisor recently named it the #1 Hotel for Romance in the World.
Recommended by soul world news
The problem is getting there. The typical economy round trip ticket from LAX to Bora Bora will set you back around $1900 taking an average of 22 hours (and three flights) each way. If you live in New York or Washington D.C., you can add six hours in both directions and another $800 per ticket.
Comments
Post a Comment