What Luxury Travel Leaders Say About the Future of Exploration

Lucía Torres · 2026-08-06

Last month, Laura Corrigan, SVP of Marketing & Communications at The Agency, headed to Vail, Colorado, as a guest of The Leading Hotels of the World (LHW) for the 2026 LHW Summit. The event was hosted at the Sonnenalp Hotel and centered around the launch of Explore: The Leading Hotels of the World — the third volume in LHW's book series with Phaidon, Monacelli, and The Slowdown. Beyond the book itself, the Summit gave attendees a real-time look at where LHW sees the industry moving. The direction? Toward travel that's more intentional, more active, and more tied to the people and places behind each stay. It's a theme that echoes the latest issue of The Agency Magazine, which dives into what today's travelers are actually seeking. ### The Big Shift: Exploration Over Checklist Travel Explore follows Design (2024) and Culture (2025), and according to Lauren Alba, LHW's Vice President of Global Marketing & Communications, it reflects a shift already showing up in the numbers. "Around the world, travelers are seeking journeys that feel meaningful, transformative, and connected to place," Alba says. "We're seeing this reflected in our own business, with bookings to remote and rural destinations up more than 10% year over year." For LHW, exploration isn't about checking places off a list. It's about how independent hotels use deep local knowledge and a personal touch to open the door to a destination. The 80-plus properties in Explore trace that shift across the portfolio, from stargazing in Chile's Atacama Desert to a Bavarian-style basecamp right here in Vail. Spencer Bailey, the series' editor-in-chief, frames it as an evolution across all three books. "Design was really about helping readers see LHW differently — the physical environments that shape a stay," he says. "Culture broadened that lens considerably, asking what makes a hotel culturally significant." Explore, he says, marks another shift: from what a hotel is to what a hotel makes possible. "The emphasis shifted from the destination itself to the adventures, discoveries, encounters, and even transformations that happen because you're there." The book leans further into first-person reporting and introduces three destination inserts — Hawaii, Sicily, and Thailand — built around "Day Trip" itineraries that push guests beyond the property gates. ### Why Independent, Family-Led Hospitality Is the Differentiator A second theme ran through both the book and the Summit conversation: In a landscape of increasingly interchangeable luxury, LHW's independent, often family-run properties are becoming its clearest point of difference. Sonnenalp Hotel, owned by the Faessler family since 1979 and now in its fourth and fifth generation of leadership, served as a working example. "Sonnenalp Hotel was a fitting host for the Summit because it brings the spirit of Explore to life in a very family-oriented and tangible way," Alba says. "I hope [guests] saw that LHW hotels are not interchangeable luxury properties. They are individual expressions of their destinations, shaped by the people who own, operate, and care for them." Bailey, who grew up in Colorado, put it in personal terms. "What surprised me was discovering something completely new in a place I thought I knew well." That's the heart of it, really — the idea that genuine exploration is about depth, not distance. ### What This Means for Travel Professionals For those of us in the luxury travel space, the takeaway is clear. Travelers are no longer satisfied with a beautiful room and a good view. They want stories, connections, and experiences that change how they see the world. They want to come home different than they left. So whether you're booking a stay at a family-run chalet in the Rockies or a remote desert lodge in Chile, the question to ask isn't just "where" — it's "what will this place make possible?" That's the future of luxury travel, and it's already here.