“Luxury” is a very difficult word to be pigeonholed, it takes on completely different meanings according to the context in which it is used, the subject who uses it and the one who interprets it.
If, for example, a young couple with low budget meets a proposal for a luxury holiday in their search, they will most likely avoid being interested in the assumption that the cost will exceed their current economic possibilities. Instead, a person with an average budget will tend to understand the offer in detail to calculate if all the services are worth the indicated cost. The customer with an important spending capacity could try to find out if the proposal includes all the important requests for him and eventually could request additions. The user with unlimited budget could instead simply buy without asking too many questions and then constantly claim services or requests that satisfy his preferences and expectations.
But what is luxury? What does this word mean when we talk about vacation, about free time?
Today, more than ever, time is the most precious asset we have. We are always in a hurry with the body or the mind constantly committed to solving, programming and advancing that we lose most of the important things on the street and it matters little if we have read this phrase over and over in recent years, the trend does not change and our lives even less. Here then that when in our morbid programming we manage to insert a moment called with the nickname of “pause”, we want it to be the maximum, perfect, unforgettable and that redeems us of all the efforts made up to that moment.
Again, what is “luxury” then? We answer in this way: it is that space that we obtain for ourselves (for our family, our affections) in which time expands or better, it calms down and resumes its normal speed (and so far we are still in the definition of “vacation” ). In this space, luxury is presented as care, attention and foresight. It does not necessarily mean a 5-star hotel with gold-plated knobs in the rooms or fresh champagne in the basket with ice and windows overlooking Piazza di Spagna. Luxury is the pleasure of receiving a genuinely affectionate welcome, where the customer is not just a number to be satisfied or a credit card to empty but a human being with whom to share the joy of what we do that is an agriturismo, a machine for the movements or a wine cellar that makes you taste the wine. “Luxury is finding the owner of the accommodation that at night, on returning from a day’s work, offers you a plate of garlic and oil spaghetti for the simple desire to do it” (cit. Kevin Lee). Luxury is the breakfast prepared with the ingredients of your own vegetable garden / chicken coop, with the love of those who want to let you taste and taste the flavors of their land and the colors of their territory. Luxury is a splendid sixteenth-century villa on the Lungarno in Florence where the manager (Riccardo) welcomes you with a smile and a kindness so genuine that you really don’t want to leave from there because it is priceless to stand on a balcony along the river with Florence that looks at you at sunset and the kayak rowers who pass back and forth but everything would be empty and aseptic if there were no shrewdness and dedication that Riccardo and all his collaborators emanate as soon as you enter the structure.
