The founder of Chinese high-end travel agency Zanadu hints that the luxury travel boom in China has yet to even begin

When Wu Zan first started his travel business, his initial objective was to target only the affluent Chinese, or the top 1 percent of the more than 100 million travelers leaving the country every year.
“When we first started, we were thinking about something other than wholesaling a trip – packing and rushing travelers into buses, canteens, and scenic spots. We wanted to be in the tailor-made segment. We wanted to be the Zegna instead of Zara for tourism,” said Wu, the founder of Zanadu, China’s leading luxury online travel agency.
The name of the company is a variation of the word Xanadu, the summer palace of one of China’s most powerful rulers, Kublai Khan, and a widely acclaimed utopian retreat in modern China. Four years after setting up his company, however, the 36-year-old has come to realize that the market is not like it used to be.
He noted that the country’s luxury market was still at its peak in 2012 despite the central government’s anti-corruption campaign and the slowing economy. This was also when he spotted the potential of another luxury market that focused more on experiences than materials.
Today, this particular trend has taken the country by storm. In fact, customers from the burgeoning middle class have become just as important as the super rich.
The cost of a “non-standard Zanadu tripR...