A&K Continues to Invest for Its Travel Advisor Partners

At last week’s 100 Club event in Chicago, the Abercrombie & Kent (A&K) team welcomed over 100 of its top-selling advisors to talk about what’s new for the brand, to spotlight what’s to come, and to celebrate the leaps and bounds that the luxury travel industry has made since the onset of the pandemic, just a few years ago.

A&K, which kept over 70% of customer money in-house during the pandemic, has more than recovered from that period. The company had its best year ever in 2023 and 2024 is trending to be even better, Amy Weyman, the managing director and executive vice president of marketing for A&K said. The goal, looking towards 2025, is to innovate and simplify both for its advisor partners and for its guests.

“This is the most exciting time yet in A&K’s future,” Weyman said.

That includes continuing to invest in digital products—according to Weyman, 97% of A&K guests are now receiving their documents through the A&K app, and 90% of guests are checking the app multiple times during their journey. A&K has also added the ability for guests to book luxury shore excursions through that app.

For advisors, A&K has recently launched the Crystal new portal and a separate A&K advisor portal is coming soon where advisors will be able to see sales reports, and commission status, and also assign roles for their internal teams.

Continuing on that advisor theme, A&K also continues to invest in its sales team working with advisors—the team at the company’s reservation, product, and sales office now has over 1,700 years of combined travel experience and over 1,000 years of A&K experience.

Each one of the A&K brands now has its own dedicated sales team, too.

Demand still strong
Demand for A&K’s luxury travel offerings may be shifting, but is still strong.

Even with the crowds last summer, Europe is still popular for A&K guests—Stefanie Schmudde, the senior vice president of global product strategy for A&K, said that Europe’s ease of access for North American consumers, coupled with pricing that’s still high, but a lot “better” than previously, is driving European demand.

Outside of Europe, “intrepid” destinations are starting to trend highly among A&K clients. That includes East and Southern Africa, Patagonia, Peru, America, and Southeast Asia and India.

“We are trying to build a global portfolio that includes a lot more intrepid destinations” to meet the growing demand, Schmudde said.

Some of those intrepid destinations are growing because of a desire to see wildlife—both Ann Epting, the senior vice president of private jet journeys, and Santiago Dunn, the CEO of A&K Latin America, said that wildlife and close encounters are driving guests.

What’s coming for A&K and Crystal Cruises
A&K executives teased several new product launches coming to the brand over the next two years, including:

• A third lodge in Kenya, opening in July 2025, which is currently in the planning phase. Expected to include 16 units and is being built at Amboseli National Park.
• “Significant” upgrades to two other camps—Gorilla Forest Camp in Uganda and Baines’ Camp in Botswana.
• A new DMC for Mexico is opening this year following the opening of its new Costa Rica DMC in 2023 and DMCs in Saudi Arabia, Namibia, Colombia, and Canada in 2022. The DMC will be led by a 13-year veteran of A&K.
• New Private Jet Journeys and Inspiring Expeditions, including:
  • A new Geoffrey Kent journey taking place on March 7, which will visit Raja Ampat and the Spice Islands.
  • Two new Wildlife journeys for 2025, one in May (Hawaii – Palau – Sumatra – Nepal – Seychelles – Namibia – Brazil – Panama – FLL), and another in September (Wildlife of the Americas).
  • An Around the World with Geoffrey Kent: An Inspiring Expedition by Private Jet, set for the end of 2025.
• A new sanctuary property in Mexico, the first A&K by-the-sea sanctuary property. Executives described it not as a “beach” option, but more a nature-centric property.
• A new lodge in Patagonia that is still in the planning phase, but is currently targeted to debut in 2026.
• An expedition vessel for Crystal Cruises, which is expected to come within the next two years.
• A first-ever riverboat in South America, which will sail in Peru. The ship will make its maiden voyage in April 2025, offering three- and four-night itineraries on the Peruvian Amazon.
• Eleven new small group journeys for 2025, including three new journeys in the Peruvian Amazon, a return to Cuba, a new itinerary in India, and more.
• New luxury expedition cruises on Ecoventura ships that will sail to the Galapagos Islands. Will be available in mid-May along with A&K’s new expedition to Iceland, the Faroes, Scotland & Ireland.

Weyman told attendees of the 100 Club that A&K’s “secret sauce” is the DMC network it has grown around the world. That network includes the new DMC for Mexico, along with six DMCs in Africa; four in Egypt, the Middle East, and North Africa; four in Europe; three in the Asia Pacific; three in China and Southeast Asia; and nine in the Americas.

Stefanie Schmudde told attendees this week that part of the simplification that the team is undertaking is being able to better categorize clients. Schmudde went far enough to say that when advisors think about their clients, they think about them in two categories—those who like to travel in groups, and those who like to travel solo.

A&K has added inventory for both those groups, including larger portfolios of both those small group journeys in 2025 and then its Tailor Made journeys that “will satisfy the variety of clients you have.”