The New Luxury Travel: Coral Gardeners Makes Conservation the Destination

Luxury travel has spent years selling privacy, access and exclusivity. Coral Gardeners is making a case for something more useful: getting closer to the experience itself.

Based in Mo'orea, French Polynesia, the coral restoration organisation offers a private VIP Xperience that puts guests directly into its conservation work. For a luxury traveller, this means swapping the standard boat excursion for something considerably more hands-on — and, importantly, dressing accordingly.

The private experience begins with a bespoke snorkelling and boat tour led by members of the Coral Gardeners conservation team. Guests visit the organisation's coral nurseries, learn how reef restoration works and can participate in restoring coral themselves.

There is an obvious appeal for the modern traveller who has moved beyond simply collecting destinations. The experience offers access that money alone cannot manufacture: proximity to the people doing the work, an understanding of the environment and the opportunity to leave having contributed something.

Coral Gardeners has built a substantial global following, with more than one million social followers, over $19 million raised for reef conservation and more than 220,000 corals planted around the world.

For those travelling in larger groups, its Nurseries Boat Xperience offers a similar opportunity to get involved while visiting the coral nurseries. In Mo'orea, conservation isn't something happening somewhere else. It is part of the itinerary.