Money, Luxury, and the High Life in Vancouver, B.C.

Image by: Paul Joseph

Peering in on the B.C. luxury market and lifestyles of the rich: luxury travel, big giving and even bigger banking.

Let’s face it: things are rough. If the economy were a celebrity, it would be Britney Spears in her head-shaving, rehab-going, strapped-to-a-gurney days. Hit with sagging investment portfolios and declining house values, British Columbians have seen an across-the-board hit to their net worth in recent months and are tightening their purse strings accordingly. But all pain isn’t created equal. The well-to-do, while doing with less, still have a disproportionate amount of disposable income – and, for businesses and organizations catering to the wealthy, figuring out how to get them to part with that cash has become crucial.

Those profiled in the following pages are intimately in tune with the needs and desires of B.C.’s moneyed class: the BC Cancer Foundation, with its intensely focused and collaborative approach to fundraising; BMO Harris private banking, with its personal

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and specialized client relationships; and Mason Horvath Inc., with its sky’s-the-limit attitude toward customer satisfaction. Each offers unique insights into tapping a consumer group that’s sophisticated, demanding and extremely valuable. Of course, any marketer will tell you that wealthy consumers are not all alike; Environics Analytics Group Ltd.’s Prizm Marketer’s Handbook, for instance, gives them names such as “Cosmopolitan Elite,” “Furs & Philanthropy” and “Asian Affluence” to differentiate. In recognition of such distinctions, our special package includes profiles (below) of three types of affluence: one who has inherited family wealth, another who immigrated from overseas to build his multimillion-dollar empire and a young entrepreneurial couple just now beginning to enjoy the trappings of success.

High Fliers: The Luxury Travel Provider

There’s no way to find Mason Horvath Inc. by accident: the business has no storefront, no signs, and does little to no advertising. And that’s just the way its president, Dean Horvath, wants it. “We don’t want our time taken up with people who are just browsing,” says the 35-year-old executive, who founded the luxury travel agency a year and a half ago with former partner Claudia Mason, whom he bought out last October. Holding court in his 14th-floor office at Granville and Hastings, Horvath explains the discriminating nature of his business. “We want to selectively choose our clients and have them choose us and spend time working to build the relationship, as opposed to just firing our name out there and getting random people calling us.” Unlike discount travel agency Flight Centre, where Horvath previously worked in corporate travel, Mason Horvath isn’t about catering to the cost-cutting needs of cash-strapped trekkers. Rather, the company is intensely service oriented, specializing in complex business and leisure-travel itineraries for busy corporate executives for whom economy class is not an option.

A low profile is all part of the mystique of high-end travel, where 24-hour individualized service is key and no request is too outlandish. Want to spend a day with a pal taking part in an aerial dogfight with an Italian-built fighter? That’ll run you upward of $6,800. How about 24 hours in Europe pretending you’re James Bond, complete with MI6 training, helicopter flights and a terrorist combat mission? A cool $63,500. Or maybe a flight into outer space? In August, the agency was accredited to represent Virgin Galactic LLC, a division of Virgin Group Ltd. that will start offering passenger flights into space starting in 2010. The cost? A mere $200,000 for a seat on the shuttle. Today’s moneyed exec, explains Horvath, isn’t interested in a comfortable luxury holiday so much as the experience of a lifetime. In an age when airlines have been folding and hotel chains are bracing for sharp downturns, elite travel seems to be in a league all its own.

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After $8 million in revenue in his first year of operation, Horvath is predicting he’ll pull in $10 million this year, in spite of the current economic climate; the super-rich may be a little less super, but they’re still willing to splurge. The company has 627 clients, says Horvath, who spend an average of $3,660 per business trip and anywhere from $5,000 to $80,000 per person for a leisure vacation.

“We spend an hour with people when we plan their vacations before we even talk about what or where,” he boasts, “just to find out what kind of trips they’ve gone on in the past, what they’re looking for in this holiday, what their likes and dislikes are.” Mason Horvath will also call hotels before their clients arrive, informing operators that a VIP is staying there and asking them to go above and beyond in serving them. “In the travel industry, 95 per cent of companies are streamlining everything . . . which works for 95 per cent of travellers,” he observes. As for the other five per cent? Well, your space shuttle awaits.

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