Concierge and Travel Planning
Concierge and travel
Concierge and travel planning
Everything around the experience, and the journey to it. Itineraries, access, flights, flowers, gifts, and the hundred small arrangements that decide how a trip actually feels.
What a concierge does here
We have spent twenty years working directly with people, and the concierge habit grew out of that. Nobody wants to hold four suppliers together themselves, chase a restaurant that says it is full, or discover on the morning that the car was never confirmed.
So we take it. A table where there are none. A house that is never advertised. The attire, the photography, the tickets, the giftings and the flowers, all arranged by the same people who design the experience itself. You call one number and everything after it is ours.
What we arrange
Four things, and most clients arrive wanting one of them and leave using all four.
Access
Tables, seats, houses, private views and the things that are not on sale. Twenty years of knowing who to ask.
Travel
Flights, private aviation, transfers, trains and the order they need to happen in.
The finishing
Flowers, styling, gifts, attire and photography, from our own departments.
On the day
Somebody of ours is awake, reachable and already dealing with it before you have noticed.
There is truly no-one in Europe who can do what they do when it comes to immersive travel and design.Harper’s Bazaar
One number, and everything after it
The little pink book of contacts is most of this job. Twenty years of knowing who to ring, what they are genuinely good at, and whether they will pick up on a Sunday.
It is not a directory anybody can buy. It is the accumulation of working with these people, watching them under pressure, and dropping the ones who were only good on paper.
That book is also why we can say yes to things that sound unlikely. Somebody in it usually knows the answer, or knows who does.
Dream, design, do
Three steps, used on everything from a single arrangement to a fortnight abroad.
Dream
You talk and we listen properly. Where you have always meant to go, who you want with you, and what the occasion actually is underneath the reason you gave for it.
Design
We draw it. The route, the order, the places, the food and the moments that hold it together, built around your taste and nobody else’s.
Do
We book it, confirm it, chase it and stand behind it. If something fails at seven in the morning in another country, it is ours to fix.
Journeys we have been asked for
The Southern Ocean down to Antarctica, written as ice and fire. Temple hopping across Cambodia as a retreat. Italy from ancient Rome through Florence to Venice. Whale watching in Canada. Getting properly lost in the Australian outback.
Every one of those came out of a conversation about the person travelling, and every one was costed honestly before anybody committed to it.
Some of them become a full production abroad, with sets and cast and freight. Most stay exactly what they are, which is a journey done impeccably.
The finishing departments
What people talk about afterwards is almost always in the last ten per cent. Those departments are ours, so we are never asking a favour of anybody.
Floral
Our own floral department. Bouquets, sculptures and installations, made here and travelling with us.
Props and objects
A prop house of things collected over twenty years, ready to be woven into a story.
Gifts and access
Curated giftings, tickets, seats and the arrangements that are not available to ask for.
Flowers we make ourselves
We are not a planner who rings a florist. The blooms, the sculptures and the installations are designed and built by our own department, which is why they can be exactly what the story needs and why they can travel with us.
It also means a change of mind on the Thursday is a conversation down the corridor, and not an argument with a supplier about what was on the order.
Who asks us for this
Private clients
A family or a group taking a journey, who want it arranged properly and want one person accountable for it.
Brands abroad
A company producing an event in another country, who need everything around it handled as well as the event itself.
One thing, done well
A single arrangement — a table, a seat, a gift, a weekend — that has to be right and cannot be left to chance.
Planners and agents
People who already hold the bookings and want the design and the detail sitting alongside them.
If the journey is the whole point
When the travelling is the experience itself, that is Mill & Fable — our itineraries, written the way we write an event.
Same people and the same departments, with the same habit of drawing the thing before booking any of it. On an itinerary the route carries the story, and the places along it are the scenes.
What it costs
Per person, this work usually begins around £800 and goes up from there. Three things move it.
How far, and how long
A weekend in Europe and a fortnight across two continents are different jobs with different amounts of arranging behind them.
How much is made
Flowers, styling, gifts and anything built for you all sit on top of the travelling itself.
How rare the access is
Some doors take a telephone call. Some take a relationship and a year.
Questions we are asked about concierge work
Is there a minimum?
No. Some of this work is a fortnight for forty people and some of it is one arrangement that has to be right.
Do you only do this alongside an event?
No. Plenty of it stands on its own, and plenty of it starts on its own and grows into something larger.
Can you work with our own travel agent?
Yes. We are often the design and the detail sitting alongside somebody who already holds the bookings.
How far ahead should we come to you?
As early as you like. The rarer the access, the longer it takes, and some of it cannot be arranged at short notice at any price.
Do you travel with us?
Sometimes. On a full production abroad, always. On a private journey it depends what you want, and we will say honestly whether it is worth it.
What does it cost?
From around £800 per person, depending on where, how long and how much of it we are making for you.
Tell us what you are imagining
A place, a rough time of year, and how many of you. Or none of those, because not knowing yet is a perfectly good place to begin.