Luxury Travel Clubs

When online travel agencies first entered the marked, they focus on the average costumer. The main objective of common online agencies is let the costumer compare hotels, flights and pre-packaged vacations and book without going through traditional travel agents. Nowadays seven in ten vacations are booked online. Most of online travelers seek to compare the best deals to get the lowest prices, but now a new generation of unique travel services is growing, offering exclusive members-only special travels and services.

These online travel clubs all have elements in common: they require users to sign up before viewing prices, they typically feature flash sales that expire within a short time, they focus primarily on luxury hotels and vacations, and they often have added services like concierges or personal travel agents.

One of this platforms is vacacionist.com this travel club offers luxury hotels at discounted prices. Vacacionist is the result of the partnership between the Travel + Leisure magazine and the online travel agence Luxury Link. But Luxury Link is not the only online travel website trying to build its own online travel club; Trip Advisor has built Snique Away, another global site that lets users book luxury vacations and hotels at less expensive rates. 

These new kind of online travel agencies try to take advantage of the success of its predecessors, but approaching to a new costumer with a higher purchasing power. 

Some travel clubs are building their platform around offering travel deals and assistance to members, almost like the 2.0 version of a travel agent. Such as BetaKit covered Want Me Get Me which launched its VIP travel membership club in early October 2012. This company has partnered with over 200 luxury hotels around the world, including Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, Trump Hotel Collection, and Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, to allow travelers pay regular hotel rates and get VIP treatment, with perks like room upgrades and free in-room WiFi. Some of the extremely high-end luxury travel clubs has an entrance fee, like Demeure, that while it has free and $495 annual plans, the VIP package with travel assistants and special pricing is $7,500 per year.

But this differentiation strategy is not having the expected success for all, while the larger online travel sites may have the expertise required to manage an online travel club, the jump to retail may not fare as well to most of them, especially for those with higher entry fees. Luxury travel club Ultimate Escapes filed for bankruptcy in 2011, because few users are willing to pay such high rates.

 

What do you think about this luxury travel clubs? Would you be willing to pay an entrance fee? Or you prefer free options although they do not offer the same services?

Post your comments!