Ed Farrelly’s first understanding of luxury had nothing to do with hotels. It came from mountains.
He started his career leading expeditions through some of the world’s most remote environments, where the scale of the landscape, the weather, the wildlife, and the challenge could amount to what he describes as an overwhelming attack on the senses. “In those environments, that is the luxury,” he told me. “It is the very best and most intense version of what that experience can be.”
I found this an interesting way of thinking about luxury: not as a particular aesthetic, price point, or level of polish, but as experiencing something at its absolute best.
Ed, now Chief Travel and Experiences Officer at Ellidore, has since spent years designing travel for people who could stay almost anywhere in the world. Yet that early, more raw definition of luxury never really left him, it simply widened. Incredible hotels, considered design, exceptional service, and all the invisible work that makes something feel effortless earned a place in it too.
But he still doesn’t think luxury belongs to any one style or category. “It is more about something being exceptional in its own field.” As Ed puts it, standing in the Himalayas, traveling through the Arctic, or checking into one of the world’s most notable hotels may have very little in common - but what connects them is the opportunity to experience each at its fullest.
Creating the conditions for that to happen, however, requires an enormous amount of thought. And that’s where Ed’s definition of luxury starts to become a definition of hospitality, too.
Every guest is different,” and Ed thinks through the unique needs of each one - some love walking into a room full of strangers, others don’t. Some are traveling with young children, while others might need extra help getting around. What relaxes one guest might be knowing exactly what’s happening next, whereas another is seeking spontaneity.
“It’s about putting yourself in every guest’s shoes and asking, if I was them, what would make this easier?”
Even when the luxury is immediately apparent, the work behind it shouldn’t be.
Because most of the time, that work isn’t a single grand gesture. To paraphrase Ed, it’s a long string of small decisions and thoughtfully arranged details made on someone’s behalf: anticipating what could interrupt an experience, solving for it in advance, and allowing the guest to simply be present for whatever they came all that way to experience.
His standard for doing that well is simple: treat every client the way you’d treat your best friend.
Would you leave your best friend wondering what they’re supposed to be doing next? Would you plan their day without thinking about how they actually like to spend it? Would you send them somewhere simply because it’s considered the best, even if you knew it wasn’t right for them? These are just a few of the questions Ed considers for every touchpoint.
“If there are question marks at any point in the journey, then we’ve probably got something wrong,” said Ed.
And after years spent thinking so carefully about how people experience a journey, Ed has come to an interesting conclusion about what they take away from it: travel itself may not be what we remember most.
People say they live to travel, and Ed thinks that’s true, but travel is the vehicle, not the destination. He told me to listen closely to someone describing a trip they loved and, eventually, the conversation tends to move away from the place. They talk about the guide who made them see it differently, someone they met over dinner, a conversation with a son or daughter they’d been too busy to have at home, or an afternoon spent with a local family.
“We’re relational,” he said. “We remember people more than we remember places. Travel just creates the time and the space for those moments to happen.”
In other words, we may travel for the place, we may gather because of the occasion - but what we tend to carry home are the people we experienced it with.
Sarah Falugo, Founder, LUÁGO Agency
I absolutely love this definition of luxury. It’s one I’ve used myself, and it’s the way I hope I make every client and work friend feel.
Such great insight isn’t it Sarah! Thanks for reading