Making the extraordinary ordinary

With holidays costing as much as $170,000, luxury travellers are guaranteed the best of everything - this is Huka Lodge's wine cellar.

Luxury tourism is not just about laying on fine wine, rich foods and sumptuous accommodation. It's about turning the extraordinary into the ordinary - whether that's finding a priceless violin for a quick fiddle, opening Te Papa early for a private visit or simply chartering a flight for your false teeth.

Auckland-based luxury tourism operator Seasonz Travel never says no to a customer, founder Sam Porter says.

"The one thing I couldn't fulfil was snow on Christmas Day," Porter says.

As long as you are prepared to pay - holidays tailored by Seasonz cost from $18,000 up to a whopping $170,000 - almost anything is possible.

It's a price tag that can get Customs to meet you personally on arrival, provides helicopters around the country, buys beds in the most exclusive lodges and access to a 24 hours-a-day concierge.

Every Seasonz customer gets a pre-programmed mobile phone on arrival for contacting the company whenever and wherever they are, and they are not afraid to use it.

One holiday-maker could have been left stranded for hours at Arthurs Pass after hitting a road digger.

"Well, we just got a helicopter to them in 10 minutes, flew them out ... put them in their next hotel [and] they got on with their holiday," Porter says. "That's what we're here for."

Porter has had Te Papa opened an hour early "at a huge cost", converted the seating in helicopters to accommodate surf boards for customers in search of the perfect wave and even chartered a flight for a set of false teeth.

Before he founded Seasonz, Porter worked for Abercrombie & Kent taking large parties of guests on month-long air journeys around the world.

On a trip from Sydney to Brisbane, one passenger lost both sets of false teeth.

With a group of about 60 people in transit, Porter made contact with their last hotel, uncovering one set in a waste bin and the other in the hotel bar. Having arrived in Brisbane and with the group about to embark on the Great South Pacific Express train, time was of the essence if the errant choppers were to be reunited with their owner.

"We actually chartered a postal plane to fly from Sydney [and] all it had on it was a set of teeth," Porter says.

It cost the tourist between $15,000 and $20,000 to regain their smile but yet again proved that where there's a will and the financial way to back it up almost anything is possible.

Perhaps Porter's most memorable client request was from a professional violinist staying at Eichardt's Private Hotel in Queenstown who one night wanted to play for the other guests.

However, she didn't want to strum just any old banjo and asked Seasonz to find her a Stradivarius violin, of which there are only about 620 in the world.

A contact in an orchestra put Porter on to the trail of New Zealand's best violinists, which eventually led to an owner of a Stradivarius who was happy to lend it out for the night at no cost.

At the time Porter, who picked up the violin in his car, didn't fully understand the enormity of the request.

"If I'd known I don't think I would have been quite so casual," he says.

In the end the tourist got the famous violin, the instrument's owner came to the impromptu recital and the evening was a great hit.

Those looking to make a luxury trip to New Zealand can expect to pay $1000 a day for top class accommodation and another $1000 a day for activities, Porter says.

"All of our clients do everything private so if there's three or four of you and you want your own jet boat you might be paying for 11 seats."

Seasonz can put together up to 20 different itineraries.

"To truly tailor-make an itinerary you've got to know the person."

Seasonz will bring about 1000 people to New Zealand this year, mainly from America, the UK and Europe and, whatever their background, Porter guards their privacy carefully.

"I think that if you are a famous person or a person with [a] high profile, one of your greatest criteria for a holiday is privacy."

However, luxury is not just a choice for the rich and famous.

"You'll be dealing with Bono on the phone one day and the next day you're dealing with a couple out of Little Rock, Arkansas that are just on their trip of a lifetime," he says.

New Zealand stacks up well internationally with travellers - predominantly couples - but there is a growing family market, Porter says.

"Which I think is really what New Zealand should be capitalising on because we're just such a fabulous family destination."

However, it's a big world out there and to help the local industry compete for the big spender, a new luxury trade show, called Pure Luxury, will be held near Rotorua this year.

Porter is part of the committee running the event, which will see 40 selected international travel specialists invited to meet 43 local luxury tourism operators.

Willem Pentermann, lodge manager of exhibitor Huka Lodge, says the show is a good idea in a sector where the number of luxury lodges has grown substantially in the past five to 10 years.

"So there is more supply and we have to create more demand and this is a way of doing it," Pentermann says.

Huka Lodge's list of famous former guests includes the Queen, Sir Edmund Hillary, Bill Gates, Michael Douglas and Larry Hagman.

Hagman's on-screen alter ego, oil baron J.R. Ewing, would have felt right at home in Huka's exclusive Owner's Cottage, opened in 2004 and costing $6710 a night plus GST for two people to rent.

New Zealand's reputation for action, adventure, sightseeing, golf and fishing has made it a top-five destination for the US market, Pentermann says.

Tourism Industry Association chief executive Fiona Luhrs says it is a good opportunity for the home-grown luxury industry to put its hand up.

"We want to be able to attract different types of people to New Zealand and it's [luxury tourism] high yielding and that's really key in terms of the tourism strategy.

"Our emphasis is on improving the yield of our tourism business, not just driving up numbers," Luhrs says.

Seasonz' Porter says New Zealand has fantastic tourism schools and the industry overall is doing a great job. But it does find itself lacking when it comes to luxury service.

The country has made a great start at catering to travellers with a taste for luxury, he says, but to capitalise on that it needs to lift the ability of the hospitality and tour industries to deliver luxury services.

For Porter, dealing in the extraordinary has become the everyday and, having stayed in some of the world's most luxurious places, it is the ordinary which for him has become special.

"My luxury holiday is getting in a tent and going somewhere and doing nothing luxury at all," he says.

So as you lounge in a deckchair this summer, you might just find the guy pitching up next door can turn your dreams of luxury into reality.

REST AND PLAY

* Luxury holidays usually cost about $2000 a day for accommodation and activities.

* Perks include a tailored itinerary, helicopter flights, rooms at exclusive lodges and a 24-hour concierge service.

* New Zealand is a top-five destination for the US market.