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9: Selling Luxury with Tom Marchant: Luxury Travel and the Art of Anticipation


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Introduction

Luxury travel isn’t just about impressive amenities and thread counts. It’s first and foremost about feelings. In this episode, I sit down with Tom Marchant, co-founder of Black Tomato, the award-winning travel company known for designing emotionally rich, highly personalized journeys. We unpack a “feelings-first” approach, why anticipation is a core luxury element, and how thoughtful access and curiosity transform trips and customer relationships into lifelong bonds.



Episode Summary

Tom shares how Black Tomato flipped the luxury travel industry script: start with how you want to feel instead of the destination. From that insight, they built a brand, a tone of voice, and a planning method that begins with emotion and reverse-engineers the experience. The experience starts the moment a client makes contact, and Black Tomato intentionally nurtures excitement and readiness with pre-trip touchpoints so the excitement and anticipation builds long before takeoff.


We dig into the brilliant idea of “demonstrable thought”—specific and visible evidence that a brand is thinking about the customer, creating rarity and relevance. Tom shares what is means to create meaningful “access,” from unique family experiences to relationship-based encounters (and even once arranging a surprise dinner with an author who influenced a client’s life). He also explores transformational travel through programs like “Bring It Back” and family “Field Trip” learning modules, showing how curiosity fuels ideas that stay with you, and change you, long after you return. The conversation widens to every luxury category: if great “experience” is the minimum bar, the next bar is emotional impact and transformation, consistently delivered with thoughtfulness, listening, and bonds over transactions.



Key Takeaways

  • Anticipation is Luxury: Build the runway, not just the landing. Create excitement, curate inspiration, context, and small moments that heighten excitement and emotional readiness.

  • Lead With Feelings, Then Design the Journey: Ask “How do you want to feel?” before “Where do you want to go?” Reverse-engineer itineraries (or any luxury offering) from desired emotions to details.

  • Demonstrable Thought Creates Rarity: Show clear evidence you’re thinking about this client with tailored touches, nuanced choices, and deeper details. Thoughtfulness is the new scarcity.

  • Access That Matters: Go beyond velvet ropes. Provide meaningful access to people, places, and ideas clients couldn’t reach alone and open psychological access to new ways of thinking.

  • Culture of Curiosity: Thoughtful, humble, curious teams spot possibilities others miss and turn them into unforgettable, personal stories.


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