Amid cost-of-living pressures, travel is at its ‘let them eat cake’ moment

Marie Antoinette didn’t actually say, “let them eat cake.” It was propaganda spread by her enemies to show how out of touch she was with the everyday lives of French citizens.

I couldn’t help but think of the sad French queen as I stood, plate in hand, perusing the lunch buffet at one of Venice’s grandest hotels, Airelles Palladio Venice, on a recent trip to Italy.

Let me eat cake, I thought. There were certainly enough of them. Laid out on the marble sideboard were 32 desserts, curated by celebrity French pastry chef Cedric Grolet, whose patisseries in Le Meurice Hotel and Paris Opera regularly see lines outside that run around the block.

Grolet also has a chocolate shop with chocolate walls and giant Wonka-esque pods of chocolate hanging from chocolate branches. His Instagram feed is full of outrageous videos of him folding rivers of chocolate into vats of cream and making custard with thousands of vanilla beans.

He is especially known for his cakes shaped like giant peanuts or fruits such as mangoes and lemons. The 32-dessert buffet featured several of them, as well as bowls of creme brulee and tiramisu, tiers of doughnuts and meringues, and platters of cakes, tarts and babas.

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While I did feel like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s Augustus Gloop when grazing the buffet – it was impossible not to try a little taste of many of the dishes – I also felt a bit like Marie Antoinette in her bubble of privilege.

Who needs a choice of 32 desserts?

For most travellers, budgets are getting tighter due to cost of living pressures. For the rich, it’s excess all areas.

They’re spending more than ever on travel and luxury brands woo them with increasing extravagances. Airelles Palladio’s 32 desserts by the world’s hottest baker is an expression of ultra-luxury, even if you don’t have a sweet tooth.

According to Virtuoso, the association of luxury travel agents that tracks the behaviour of high net worth customers, 2026 has seen a 37 per cent increase in bookings for hotels that charge more than $US1500 ($2163) a night and sales of luxury hotels are up by almost 21 per cent.

With the divide between the wealthy and the just-getting-by increasing, we’re probably in a “let them eat cake” moment of travel. The rich eat lots of cakes, while the rest of us exist for the day on a cup of coffee and a croissant.

But I have nothing against cake. As I cracked the shell on the Cedric Grolet lemon cake to discover an oozing sorbet-jelly inside, I admired the craftsmanship. But I also thought about waste.

There’s been a lot of talk in the past couple of years about “redefining luxury away from excess”. According to Virtuoso again, 74 per cent of luxury travellers are willing to pay more for certified sustainable hotels and operators. They’re supposedly more interested in privacy and exceptional service than bling.

But privacy can be its own kind of excess – the privacy of a first-class cabin, of a private jet, an enormous suite or a villa with its own security or a private yacht. It’s resource intensive.

The International Council on Clean Transportation says that private jet flights that departed US airports in 2023 accounted for more than 55 per cent of all private jet greenhouse gas emissions that year. Private jets are the most polluting of all transport, with carbon emissions up to 14 times more per person than commercial aviation.

Their excess, we pay for it.

Traveller reported recently that spending on luxury cruises was soaring at eye-watering rates. Top suites sell out quickly, even at $159,050 a person on Regent Seven Seas Prestige.

And takeovers of entire resorts or hotels by families or groups of friends are more common. The exclusive use of popular Kokomo Island in Fiji, for instance, costs about $210,000 a night with a minimum three-night stay. Pennies for some.

Hoteliers tell me that there are many guests who don’t blink at these prices. So long as the hotel exceeds expectations, they’ll pay for it.

Amenities such as in-room gyms, 24-carat iPads, private recording studios and a Rolls-Royce on tap become baseline. Hotels, cruise lines, resorts need to think up increasingly novel lures for the pampered.

So much for sustainability. I’m not seeing much restraint in the ultra-luxury world.

I’m going to eat my cakes when I can because it’s back to a croissant in a paper bag next trip.