Our Luxury Travel and Yachting Trend Report has been designed to be a resource and a foundation for trend-based strategy for the next five years of luxury travel. Over the next five years and beyond, Pelorus will be investing in companies and kit that help minimise the environmental impact of getting from A to B, especially in wilderness locations. With the emergence of various forms of emission-free electric transport – both on the ground and in the air – luxury travellers will soon find they are able to avail of a fleet of new Clean Tech toys on their adventure. What this means is that, finally, there will be tangible ways to make journeys more sustainable, allowing responsible travellers to align their beliefs with their behaviour.

Jimmy Carroll, Co-founder of Pelorus, says: “Moving around the planet is an unavoidable aspect of travel. It’s often the most difficult to justify when looking at the environmental cost of ultra-bespoke experiences and is a long-standing issue that we – along with the rest of the industry – are acutely aware of. Thankfully, we are seeing transport and logistic providers on land, sea and in the air working incredibly hard to develop cutting-edge technology that allows for massive improvements in this area, whilst also maintaining the standards that UHNWIs are used to. In the very near future, we expect more and more of these clean transport options to feature heavily in luxury travel itineraries and have already started to work with innovative partners to bring these new technological capabilities to market.”

A huge amount of innovation is already happening in the “clean mobility” space, including the development of “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF) that can be made from the likes of used cooking fats, algae or (controversially) palm oil. (Palm trees are often planted in place of rainforests.) Many airlines such as British Airways, Emirates and United are investing in SAF, and when Boom Supersonic brings back planes that can fly faster than the speed of sound before the end of the decade, they will be powered by SAF too. For those flying privately, jet charter company Victor is leading the way by enabling customers to buy SAF, via a partnership with Finnish oil refining company Neste. We will also see the debut of entirely new modes of emission-free transport such as the Virgin Hyperloop train, stratospheric balloon flights from Space Perspective and even airships from OceanSky Cruises.

In addition to the arrival of electric aerial taxis (aka eVTOLs – electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles) from companies such as Vertical Aerospace, Jetson, VRCO and Airspeeder (the last of which has developed a flying racing car), we will also see companies such as Vita bringing electric tenders and jet skis to the sailing community. Proving that marine toys don’t have to have a negative impact on our oceans, both Xfoil and Fliteboard have built electric eFoils that look like surfboards and allow riders to fly quietly across the water while standing on them.

Yachting will also come with a lower carbon footprint – Rolls-Royce and Italian yacht builder Sanlorenzo, for example, plan to build a large motor yacht with a methanol engine propulsion system able to run on carbon-neutral green methanol. Then there is Cake, which has designed lightweight, high-performance, solar-powered electric motorbikes that have already been adopted by anti-poaching squads in South Africa because they move so quietly. All these innovations will be made available to Pelorus clients for Clean Tech Expeditions over the coming years.