TRAVEL
CONCIERGED LUXURY: THEN & NOW
LUXURY CONSIERGED
Then and Now
BeyondPossible: From Bill Fischer to TikTok Travel
No, there’s no need to sound the alarm! We have by no means turned our backs on sustainable and responsible travel, nor on the principles of the HoteliersGuild when it comes to our interpretation and understanding of “luxury” in its deeper sense.
However, when I recently stumbled across this New York Times article on Olivia Ferney, the young TikTok concierge to billionaires with some recorded and rather hilarious requests/demands with her complaining clients, I was reminded of my first encounter many moons ago with Bill Fischer, the godfather of luxury travel, and later both a friend and a legend of our trade.
At the time, I was opening some very high-profile properties in the Caribbean—St. Barth, Barbuda, Antigua —for equally high-profile owners. Bill’s clients, naturally, insisted on being the very first guests, regardless of whether the gardens were half-planted, the furniture containers still lost in customs, or the phone lines unreliable (long before iPhones came to rescue us from such headaches).
And yet, with Bill’s trademark calm tenacity, the mantra was always: “Make it happen.” And somehow, we did.
And the thought crossed my mind: Is this type of “concierged luxury travel” still relevant today - outdated, or even decadent?
Let’s compare the two models, and then leave it to our community to draw an open conclusion.
THE Bill
The Original “Impossible Bureau”
Founded in 1973, Fischer Travel
long before “concierge travel” was even a concept. While most agents lived off hotel commissions, Fischer broke the mold by introducing annual membership fees - first $5,000 in the late ’90s, then evolving into initiation fees of $100,000 and renewals of $25,000. Many thought him crazy, but the model worked. It allowed Fischer and later his daughter, Stacy Fischer-Rosenthal, to dedicate themselves entirely to their most loyal clients, forging lasting ties with figures like Ian Schrager, Agnes Gund, and Brice Marden. In doing so, Fischer became the benchmark for UHNWI concierge services - not selling rooms or tables, but selling something rarer: certainty.
• Personally Vetted (almost everything): Fischer is among the few agencies licensed to sell Axiom Space missions -10-day journeys costing tens of millions, complete with 15 weeks of astronaut training. Remarkably, it is the only product they offer that they haven’t personally tested.
• Discretion as Ethos: Membership was by referral only, with unlisted numbers and confidentiality agreements.
• Total Service: Whether it was a last-minute villa, medical evacuation, or “something that doesn’t exist yet,” Fischer’s creed was: we don’t give up.
“So you could walk across the street—but if you had to have that specific suite, I was the only one who could get it.”
— Bi Fiser
“We are on‐call for our clients 24/7—and there is always somebody to take care of anything.”
— Stacy Fis
ast-forward
24-year-old
Olivia Ferney Luxury in F
$2,500–$8,500
impossible Her
• Helicopter tag: $100,000).
• Lavender notice.
• Limes intuition
• Pets indulged
Unlike “outrageous friendly her clients
! A" of Virality
ast-forward to 2025, and enter Olivia Ferney, aka Travel with Livii: a 24-year-old Canadian who has reinvented the concierge role on TikTok. For $2,500–$8,500 a month, her clients get a Gen-Z spin on the Fischer ethos— impossible requests fulfilled with a wink and a viral video.
casebook includes:
Helicopter hunting parties from yachts in Mykonos (price $100,000).
Lavender spray flown across continents at a moment’s notice.
Limes sourced by country of origin because a client’s intuition “rejected” the wrong ones.
pampered, midnight whims granted, micro-indulgences indulged with a smile.
Unlike Fischer’s hushed discretion, Ferney has made the “outrageous ask” part of her brand narrative—an audiencefriendly performance that both entertains and reassures clients that nothing is too absurd.
THEN & NOW:
Then & Now: Two Models
Fischer Travel (Then)
• Discreet, referral-only
• Legacy memberships ($100,000 initiation + $25,000 annual renewals)
• Persistence: “Call twice daily for two months” until success
• Privacy as the ultimate currency
Shared Truth: The whims of UHNWIs must always be indulged.
Both, however, immutable truth: UHNWIs must always
Models of BeyondLuxury
Olivia Ferney (Now)
• TikTok virality, brand transparency
• Subscription model ($2,500–$8,500 per month)
• Performance: share outrageous asks as content
• Storytelling as the new currency
truth:
however, thrive on one truth: the whims of always be indulged.
EPILOGUE From St. Barth to TikTok
Looking back on those days in the Caribbean- where champagne cooled in unpowered fridges and palm trees moved overnight - I see how seamlessly the story arcs into today’s TikTok generation.
Bill Fischer and his daughter built an empire on persistence and privacy.
Olivia Ferney builds one on performance and virality
But in truth, both prove the same timeless principle: for the ultra-rich, luxury is not about marble floors or infinity pools. It is about the extent to which whims are indulged, however unreasonable.
And for us, the stewards of hospitality? Should we simply say yes - with a chilled glass in one hand and, these days, perhaps a TikTok app in the other?
Then and Now:
Contrasting models of UHNWI travel service that reveal how the psychology of indulgence remains timeless, even as methods change.
IMPRESSUM
Title: The BEYOND series
Collated by: CHCCoutureHospitalityConcept
In Collaboration with: HoteliersGuild
Publisher: CHC Publishing
Editorial Coordination: Frank M. Pfaller
Year of Publication: Spring 2025
Contact: info@HoteliersGuild.com
Websites: www.HoteliersGuild.com
CoutureHospitalityConcept
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