Beyond Large Luxury Cruises: The Rise of Boutique Expeditionary Travel

On Experience

Colin Nagy is a marketing strategist and writes on customer-centric experiences and innovation across the luxury sector, hotels, aviation, and beyond. You can read all of his writing here.

Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton have put sizable investments into their yacht businesses, serving luxury consumers at scale. And business is booming.

But there is also a smaller, interesting b-side to this market: an emerging segment of adventurous luxury travelers. A brand that caters to them is Aqua Expeditions, which offers a more boutique experience and flexible access to interesting, far-flung atolls and other remote places.

The company, led by founder and CEO Francesco Galli-Zugaro, creates unique small-ship expeditions. It’s an interesting sell for the luxury traveler who has checked many global destinations off their list and is looking for access to hard-to-reach regions.

Guests can dive with sharks and manta rays in the Galapagos, fish for piranhas in the Amazon, see Komodo Dragons in East Indonesia, or bike through picturesque Mekong rice fields. The variety is the draw.

The company stays intentionally small, with ships accommodating fewer than 40 passengers. This allows for a level of personalization that simply isn't possible on larger vessels. "Our guests are affluent explorers," says Galli-Zugaro. "The