The first of Traveller Made‘s three Essence of Luxury events has begun in Phuket, Thailand with Founder and President Quentin Desurmont reporting strong growth for fledgling community, Takumians.
Opening the Iconicity-themed conference yesterday, Desurmont reflected on the past year, highlighting the significant strides made by Traveller Made in reshaping and expanding the luxury travel network.
Last year the luxury travel network reframed its advisors as “master designers and crafters” while September 2024 saw the launch of its Takumians community – introduced to allow Traveller Made to continue to grow as the original Serandipians community approaches capacity.
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“We’ve always limited the number of Serandipians agencies to 600 since the very beginning,” Desurmont stressed. But strong demand from the agency community prompted him to restructure the organisation. “We decided we’re going to have 200 per continent and we’re nearly there, more or less.”
“People understood that we need the minimum number of agents to provide business to our suppliers, to our partners, and now we’re getting closer to that. So that’s why, in September 2024 we decided to launch Takumians.”
Serandipians now counts 570 agencies in its community. “There are 30 more to come,” Desurmont said. “ we’re going to try to get them in North America.” Meanwhile, the Takumians community, which he said was very similar in offering, now has 80 agencies, with growth a priority.“This whole bunch of agencies represents an aggregated revenue of $5.2 billion,” he shared. “It’s small compared to some of our competitors, but we are small, beautiful and like-minded – we don’t want to be big.”
Last year also saw Traveller Made reimagine its annual Essence of Luxury event, held in Marbella since 2019, as three regional events – one in Asia, one in Europe and one in the Americas. “The goal was clear – to bring the brand closer to its members and partners in every region of the world,” Desurmont said.
Essence of Phuket is the first of these, with Essence of Panama and Essence of Sardinia to follow later this year. Yesterday, Traveller Made confirmed the dates for the next Essence of Phuket as 2 March to 6 March 2026.
LATTE is in Phuket as a guest of Traveller Made.
