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Voyage Edge · Intelligence Desk JOHNNIE BLUE

Forbes Poll of 250 UHNW Travelers Confirms Bleisure Primacy, Urban Aman Expansion Next

The survey quantifies what allocators already suspected: work-travel fusion isn't optional anymore, and resort brands need cities.

Published July 11, 2026 Source Forbes Research From the chopped neck
Subject on the desk
Luxury Travel Industry
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JOHNNIE BLUE · July 11, 2026

Forbes Poll of 250 UHNW Travelers Confirms Bleisure Primacy, Urban Aman Expansion Next

The survey quantifies what allocators already suspected: work-travel fusion isn't optional anymore, and resort brands need cities.

PublishedJuly 11, 2026
SourceForbes Research →
From the chopped neck

Forbes Research polled 250 global high-net-worth individuals on their 2025 travel patterns and surfaced four vectors that family offices and hospitality developers should treat as allocation signals, not lifestyle color. The survey confirms bleisure—business-leisure hybrids—moved from scheduling convenience to primary travel mode, while sustainability shifted from marketing language to booking criteria. The third finding matters more: resort brands expanded into urban centers at pace, with Aman's Rosa Alpina opening in the Dolomites serving as proof-of-concept for their broader metropolitan strategy.

The numbers align with what single-family offices have been hearing from their principals for eighteen months. Bleisure trips now account for the majority of UHNW travel bookings, not because travelers suddenly discovered video calls work from Positano, but because the boundary between work and leisure dissolved for this cohort during the 2020-2022 reset and never reformed. Sustainability scored as a decision factor, though the survey didn't break out whether respondents meant carbon accounting, regenerative site design, or supply-chain transparency—three entirely different capital requirements for developers. The urban resort expansion trend appeared across multiple brands, but Aman's Rosa Alpina launch—designed by Jean-Michel Gathy of Denniston, their longtime collaborator—signals where the capital is moving. Gathy's brief centered on "peace and connection to nature" inside a Dolomites setting, the same design philosophy Aman will need to translate into Tokyo, New York, and London properties already in their pipeline.

This matters because the $600-billion global luxury hospitality market is repricing around a structural shift in how wealth moves. When bleisure becomes the default, properties need year-round occupancy models, not seasonal peaks. That changes underwriting. When sustainability becomes table stakes, development timelines extend 12-18 months for permitting and material sourcing, which changes IRR assumptions. When resort brands push into cities, they're competing with Four Seasons and Rosewood on the latter's home ground, but bringing a different product thesis: the urban customer wants the resort experience without the flight. Family offices holding legacy hospitality assets should be modeling whether their properties can deliver that synthesis or whether they're structurally exposed to the gap.

Operators should watch Aman's next three urban announcements, expected through mid-2026, for site selection patterns—whether they're buying into established luxury districts or anchoring emerging ones. Hospitality developers should track sustainability certification costs; if UHNW travelers are actually checking LEED, BREEAM, or Living Building Challenge status before booking, the certification premium becomes recoverable, possibly within 24 months instead of the traditional 60-month payback. Agency strategists managing luxury resort clients should be pressure-testing whether their creative assumes seasonal campaigns or always-on bleisure messaging, because the Forbes data suggests the former is already obsolete for this customer tier.

The Rosa Alpina's December opening arrived the same week luxury brands deepened Formula One investments—Aman's parent company doesn't sponsor F1 yet, but the customer overlap is north of 40 percent, and that gap won't hold.

The takeaway
UHNW bleisure is now majority share; urban Aman expansion through 2026 will test whether resort brands can compete in cities without diluting core product.
bleisureamanuhnw-travelurban-hospitalitysustainabilityluxury-resorts
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