Editorial Contributor

In the know with Gostelow…

With the world wondering what a certain volcano is going to do next – this month sees our intrepid traveller, Mary Gostelow, enjoying the best that nature has to offer.

Issues such as sustainability and harmonising with the natural environment is increasingly more important to the modern luxury traveller. They are now more willing to travel further in search of the reward of wilder, more untamed landscapes, which means that whether it’s in the Australian outback or African Savannahs, Mary is right there!

Mary Gostelow is owner-editor of the unique and influential monthly Gostelow Report, and is also the Editor-at-Large of www.WOW.travel , the online magazine of Kiwi Collection INC. Mary also shares her unique

insights via ‘Gostelow LIVE’ market intelligence, distributed daily from both ALTM and ILTM – including all the latest news and views from the show floor on www.altm.com.cn and www.iltm.net . Read on to see what Mary has uncovered this month… ■

ILTM/ALTM Gostelow Report: May 2010

Amanresorts’ youngest beauty, Amangiri, Utah, USA, is as iconic today as Dubai’s Burj al Arab, vintage 1999. Amangiri’s snake-like layout of 34 flat-roofed concrete and glass villas looks out at 1,900 desert acres. Mountains, crags and flatlands evolve through shades of pale coffee to white, to bright peach at sunset. Luxury space – the spa here is 1,200 sq metres. Luxury is what you cannot get enough of – world-class food with a back-drop of unique dinosaur desert. At the Dinosaur Museum here, you may even meet Merle Graffam, who found the 82.5 million year-old Nothronychus graffami fossil skeleton a mile from Amangiri.

Ultra development continues. The 20-room Saffire Freycinet, Tasmania, opening June 1st, 2010, offers a celebrity facialist, Marionne De Candia, and strategic Wineglass Bay walks. Luxury can be simple, say sockets in Cathay Pacific’s first-class for ordinary 110-volt equipment; Mandarin Oriental Boston’s spa lockers, holding not only with Frette robes but also sleek leather pouches filled with razors and much more, and British Airways premium Heathrow Arrivals Lounge’s English breakfasts, which also offer yummy mixed red fruit and healthy breads, great for antioxidant addicts.

Want a luxury expedition cruise? Orion Cruises, founded by Australian Sarina Bratton, a former champion athlete, in 2004, has added a second ship. The 50-cabin Orion II’s 2011 programme includes Russia’s Far East, circumnavigating Borneo, Papua New Guinea, the Maluku (Spice) Islands and the Antarctic bases of legendary explorers Mawson, Scott and Shackleton. Silversea’s 66-cabin Prince Albert II’s Antarctic schedule November through Feburary 2011 is nearly booked out - one voyage for a Chinese group. But consider shoulder-season repositioning cruises, say a pair of 22-day March 2011 itinerary, Ushuaia-Cape Town followed by Cape Town-Dakar. Conrad Combrink, South African overall director of Prince Albert II, stresses the appeal of spa, gym, dining, humidor, entertainment and culture galore.

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