Space Travel: The Next Frontier

Imagine: You’re up before the sun to board the first marine spaceport for human spaceflight, Marine Spaceport Voyager (MS Voyager). Shortly after, you enter Spaceship Neptune, which was designed to be not only accessible and sustainable but also safe. You gracefully launch from the ocean, traveling up at a gentle speed of 12 mph, and witness a breathtaking sunrise. Your destination is apogee — or maybe the true destination is a shift in your perspective — and once you arrive above 99% of Earth’s atmosphere, you take it all in.

You realize you’re one of the few who have witnessed Earth from space, and the experience is not exactly what you thought. It’s a gentle, peaceful journey enhanced with food and beverage service, comfortable seating and Wi-Fi. After two unforgettable hours soaking up an experience of a lifetime, you begin a gentle descent that ends with a soft splash in the ocean before being brought back onto MS Voyager to commemorate with a toast.

You’ve secured your spot in space history.

Now, this might not seem like a realistic scenario for many travelers, but the insatiable curiosity of explorers and scientists has brought space travel within reach.

Exploration Travel Reaches New Heights

With a goal of making space travel accessible to more people than ever, Space Perspective plans to take the experience to a whole new level. According to Jane Poynter, founder, co-CEO and CXO of Space Perspective, the trends in travel are shifting, and travelers are on the lookout for this type of “unique and transformative” experience.

“Not only is the luxury experience market set to double in the next 5-10 years, but adventure travel itself is one of the fastest growing tourism markets,” Poynter said. “Space tourism is expected to become an $8 billion industry within this decade, and we are well positioned to capture that market with a reimagined spaceflight experience that is the safest, most advanced and most accessible of any space travel option right now.”

Intrepid explorers have long been searching for the next best thing to curb their appetite for adventure. They’ve dove down to the depths of the oceans, scaled the world’s tallest mountains and taken expedition vessels to the most remote areas on Earth. Now they’re looking to space for their next journey.

Andrea Wright, vice president, luxury sales at Outside Agents, noticed that the COVID era heightened the realization of experiences being more important than “stuff,” and travelers are no longer waiting for retirement to check off their bucket list adventures. 

“The hunger to go where no one has gone before and the demand for experiencing something extraordinary has exploded, and space travel surely fits in that category of being one of the ‘first’ to experience something truly unique and different,” Wright said.

A Focus on What’s Next

Selling reservations to space? This is surely hard to grasp for some travel advisors, but the future is here. Wright reminds advisors that you only get one opportunity to pave the way when it comes to new experiences in the travel industry, so it’s important to keep up with the latest trends.

“I'm certain most of the advisors have never even considered the thought of selling a seat to space, but that's where the ‘out of the box’ advisors will continue to lead the way, and be more successful,” Wright said.  

The savviest of advisors know that keeping up with market trends is imperative. It’s crucial to be able to deliver on what your travelers are looking for. The second your client approaches you with a new idea that you either know nothing about or completely disregard, they’ll instantly walk the other way — into the hands of someone willing to work with them.

Poynter reminds travel advisors to think about how rapidly other travel markets have taken off and encourages them to embrace space travel and position themselves as experts in this emerging field. “I would encourage advisors to think about how quickly commercial aviation took hold or where the cruise industry was 50 years ago and then consider what these markets look like today,” she said.

Think back to when you first started out as a travel advisor. There was surely a specific product or travel type that you never envisioned yourself selling. Now think about all the milestones you’ve hit along the way, all the unique experiences you’ve booked for your clients, and ask yourself this question: Why not me? Why can’t you be the one to book a seat to space?

Preparing Advisors for Launch

When it comes to working with Space Perspective, the company is committed to supporting the travel advisor community. This futuristic product, and space tourism in general, feels intimidating to many advisors, but there are resources available to get a grasp on the offerings.

Whether it’s to learn more about how it works or to work together on marketing initiatives, Space Perspective encourages advisors to engage with their team and set up training to discover more about what this experience entails for their clients.

“Space Perspective is deeply committed to supporting the travel advisor community,” Poynter said. “For starters, we specifically chose Edyta Teper, our VP of Global Sales & Trade, to lead our sales strategy because she comes from this world and understands the value and benefit that is realized through engaging this community. We have also established generous commissions and flexible policies because we know from experience how to create a win-win dynamic and build lasting relationships with our partners in the industry.”

Interested in selling this life-changing journey? Travel advisors who would like to learn more details about this opportunity can visit the Space Perspective website: www.spaceperspective.com.

“We know that looking down on Earth from space will completely change one's perception of the world and our place within it,” Poynter said. “And we believe that the more people who have this perspective shift, the better off our planet will be into the future.” 

Why can travel advisors feel comfortable working with Space Perspective?

“Space tourism is still very new and next, and to be most comfortable and confident selling our experience, we recommend engaging with us for ongoing training to best capture this high-growth market. It's an exciting, once-in-a-lifetime moment we are in presently, but it requires knowledge and expertise, which we are here to offer — with an emphasis on how we are building the experience in a highly tested and safe way, and how our gentle flights are far different from what the public still thinks of when they think of traveling to space. It's a pleasure and an honor to work with our partners in this way.” — Jane Poynter

Article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of The Compass magazine.