Toys, spas, private planes: how luxury travel is wooing pets and their owners

The first time Sylvia Sadowska travelled on a plane with her Dalmatian-mix rescue dog, Bjorn, she claims she was “more anxious than he was.” Bjorn, who weighs about 65 pounds, flew in the cargo hold for about five hours from Toronto to Vancouver, where Sadowska was visiting friends.

Since then, she has brought Bjorn on over a dozen flights, including jaunts to the U.S. to see her brother in Seattle and Florida and a four-week vacation to Europe in 2023, which included stops to visit family in Poland and sightseeing in Austria.

“He really is my favourite travel companion,” Sadowska says. “He enriches the vacation by making me go outside a little bit more, even if it’s bad weather, to see something.”

More dog owners are taking their furry friends with them on their travels. According to a survey released by the American Pet Products Association in August 2024, vacationing with pets is on the rise. The survey found that 22 per cent of respondents had taken their dogs on three or more trips with them by plane in 2023, up from 13 per cent in 2022.

Sadowska usually stays at pet-friendly accommodations when travelling with Bjorn, and she’s noticed that hotel chains, especially luxury hotels, have become more welcoming towards pets. “When we first started travelling, I found that hotels were pet tolerant, but now they’ve become really pet friendly,” she says.

She loved the room-service offerings at the Seattle Fairmont Olympic in particular. “They had a three-course tasting you could do with your pet,” she says. “They had lamb and rice soup and pet-friendly macarons.” Hotel staff also recommended trains and bus routes that would easily accommodate Bjorn and helped organize a hike for the two in Mount Rainier. When the duo returned muddy, Sadowska retreated to the spa while Bjorn was whisked away to a dog spa at the hotel for a bath.

Sadowska says these pet-friendly perks have encouraged her to book more luxury-focused accommodations. “I don’t think that I would have stayed at a lot of the four- to five-star hotels previous to getting a dog,” she says. “When I realized that I liked travelling with him, I started looking into more luxury options.”

Fariyal Hasham, managing director at Hotel X Toronto, says she’s also noticed more dogs staying at the hotel. “Pre-COVID, it was maybe one in a hundred rooms,” Hasham says. “Now it’s one in 50. A lot more people are travelling with pets.”

The increase in pet travel has prompted more hotels, like Fairmont and Hotel X, to launch “Very Important Pet” programs. Hotel X introduced its version of the program in July 2024, in partnership with the Montreal-based pet concierge company Pawsome. The $100 pet fee per stay includes amenities like poop bags in a dispenser, dog treats, bone broth, a snuffle mat, a bandana and a toy. A dog bed and dog bowls are also provided during their stay. “Pre-COVID, we probably had about five dog beds and food bowls but now we’re up to about two dozen beds and bowls,” says Hasham. Additional services, like a one-hour dog walk ($60) and four hours of in-room sitting ($100), are also available while pet massages and “spaw” treatments are offered on request.

Hasham says that most travellers staying at the hotel with dogs and cats are driving into Toronto, however some, like Sadowska and Bjorn, will fly. K9 Jets, based in Birmingham, England, offers a pay-per-seat private jet service where pets can fly in the cabin with owners. Launched in March 2023, the company operated its first flight from Canada in November 2024, from Toronto to London, priced at US$9,925 per seat, one-way.

The ticket allows each passenger to bring two pets weighing under 50 pounds each, or one pet over 51 pounds. “Passengers and their pets can fly stress free, comfortably together in the cabin,” says K9 Jets founder Adam Golder. “Once we reach cruising altitude, pets can stretch out into the aisle and snooze.” Each pet also receives a water bowl, a personalized toy, and a toy bone for dogs or a blanket for cats.

While Golder says that the service is popular with people relocating with their pets, some have also travelled with their pets on a vacation. To date, the company has operated more than 200 flights, transporting over 2,000 pets.

The cost of a K9 Jets flight might be prohibitive for some travellers, but Sadowska says the additional flight and hotel fees she’d pay for taking Bjorn with her are often lower than the cost of keeping him at home. “The boarding service costs $115 a night for a 24-hour period, but the dog fee at the [Fairmont Le Château Frontenac] is $50,” Sadowska says. Air Canada charges $50 per one-way domestic flight and $100 for international flights. “I always try to consider him in my travels,” she says. “We all get something out of it.”