Extravagance unlimited - secrets of the big spenders

I am not sure we knew much about luxury ten years ago when I launched Quintessentially, a concierge service catering to wealthy people low on time. We didn't offer very much at all. Maybe a table at The Ivy followed by tickets to Cirque du Soleil. But things were different in 2000. Chinawhite was hot, Barbados was the destination, and nobody had heard of Dubai. The concept of luxury was mostly associated with designer clothes and chartered yachts. Ten years on, it spans everything from transfers by elephant, access-all-areas passes to private members' clubs and getting Santa over from Lapland on a reindeer-drawn sleigh.

Our first members were my mother Annabel and my grandfather, the late Major Bruce Shand. The price was £250 a year and we thought a telephone and internet service would suffice. We soon discovered that communicating through a PA is no substitute for spending an hour with somebody face to face. But impersonal was in. Ian Schrager's Sanderson and St Martins Lane hotels were exciting but also clinical. The staff were so cool that I was always frightened to go in alone. I don't think that's how people want to feel any more. These days we send people to The Connaught and we're celebrating our tenth anniversary at The Savoy next month because those places are just so good at remembering who you are.

In the first year we realised the essence of luxury is service, an idea that was all but
forgotten when the Dubai boom kicked off in 2002, and places such as Miami and Las Vegas were on turbo-drive as they fought for rich consumers. Everything was overdressed and over-the-top. The arrival of six- and seven-star service summed up how out of hand things had got. Air-conditioned beaches and solid gold taps came to define a hotel's star rating. Attentiveness was sacrificed in the process.

Growth in the luxury sector continued through the mid-2000s and, to my mind, reached its zenith in 2007, when we hosted the £1,500-a-head Diner des Tsars, an extravaganza recreating a 19th-century feast of caviar, foie gras, lobster and beef tartare, once enjoyed by Tsar Alexander II of Russia, washed down with jeroboams of vintage champagne. Darcey Bussell danced, Katherine Jenkins sang and Cossack dancers threw swords and backflipped around Natalia Vodianova and Jemima Khan. There was a lot of showing off that night; we raised £400,000 for UNICEF – but if we'd done it this year it wouldn't have worked. Things have changed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers two years ago and everyone expects more for their money. Previously, it was only New Yorkers who were the big negotiators and the English wouldn't have dreamed of asking for an up-grade. Now, search engines tell you exactly how much something costs and suddenly everyone wants the best deal. What's more, everyone is thinking internationally. The wine industry used to be almost unregulated, but these days our members in Jordan know the going rate for a bottle of Château Lafite in London.

Recently I've been to some places such as Neeleshwar Hermitage in Northern Kerala, a sleepy eco-resort on the Indian Ocean with palm trees, thatched bungalows and butterflies everywhere, which redefines luxury. The deferential staff observed everything my girlfriend Mary-Claire and I were into: they remembered where we left our books and as soon as it looked like rain, a pair of umbrellas would appear. It was all so thoughtful. In terms of marketing, a resort that recycles its kitchen waste to provide bio-gas for cooking and has banned bottled water in favour of water purified on-site by osmosis doesn't equate to six-star service. But to my mind it does. And it's catching on. Even in the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, where I was last week, I read four different signs instructing me not to use too much water.

Ten years on, Quintessentially has grown into 25 different companies offering services to members and non-members in wine, travel, flowers and property. Yes, people are still asking for a table at The Ivy, and Cirque du Soleil tickets, but they want The Ivy's private room, backstage passes to Cirque, a chauffeur for the evening and a table at the opening night at the best club in town (which will be New York transfer The Box, a burlesque nightclub that is taking over the Raymond Revue Bar next month).

Luxury is perhaps even more indefinable than it was before. My greatest luxury happens to be my grandfather's three-piece suit from the now-defunct military tailors Cooling Lawrence & Wells of Maddox Street, from 1968, that I'm wearing today. That's something money can't buy.
quintessentially.com

UNDER £10,000
Finding five tiger cubs for a member's jungle-themed party.
Supplying a metal detector for a member stuck in the French Alps, who had lost his keys in the snow.
Organising three reindeer, a sleigh, Mrs Claus and some elves for a London Christmas party.
Two people wanted to climb the Sydney Opera House and watch the fireworks from the top of the sails at midnight on New Year's Eve.
A member called from the Amazon having failed to spot its rare pink dolphins. We managed
to find them and arranged a helicopter to take him to see them.
A member requested a llama be delivered to his house on Christmas Day to give to his wife.
Providing a last-minute elephant for an Indian couple getting married in London whose original elephant was lame on the morning of their wedding.

Under £50,000
Arranging for a member
to fly a fighter jet at 43,000ft.
We closed the Sydney Harbour Bridge for a private climb so a member could propose.
We set up a romantic private dinner for a member and his wife on an iceberg.
Sending an entire circus troupe to a member's home
in Dublin for his child's birthday.

Over £100,000
Arranging a party for 300 people at the Pyramids in Egypt.
We created a Batman-style Bat Cave in a member's house – complete with a secret door
behind the bookcase.
Quintessentially Aviation organised a round-the-world trip for eight people in a private jet, arranging all accommodation, activities and money-can-only-just-about-buy experiences all
over the globe.