Luxury Escapes opened its second physical store today at Westfield Bondi in Sydney to much fanfare, with people queuing up as early as 4am for the opportunity to win $100,000 worth of holidays.
Inspired by a premium airline lounge and some of the operator’s most popular tropical destinations, such as the Maldives and Bali, the store features immersive LCD screens, an in-boutique bar, and a palm tree oasis feature.
The space is staffed by 15 full-time consultants and is open for a public preview and a giveaway today, with regular trading beginning tomorrow.
“It’s a pretty spectacular space, it feels like you’re going on holiday when you walk in a store,” founder Adam Schwab told travelBulletin.
According to a recent Luxury Escapes survey, 80% of travellers book through the website, but 15% prefer to book in person and 5% over the phone.
That personal level of service seems to have paid off for Luxury Escapes, with Schwab noting that while an online customer may spend $2,000 on average when buying a holiday, over the phone that can go up to $3,500 and in-store, it is almost $8,000.
The travel business is now looking at sites for its next store.
“The type of site and centre [we get] will make the decision for us,” Schwab said.
“If it’s in a prime location, Brisbane will likely be the next cab off the rank, but that can change.”
Schwab is imagining Luxury Escapes will eventually open one store per city, maybe two – “but never 20 or 30” – giving the business the opportunity to invest 20 times what a normal business would in its physical store network.
“We’re next to Mecca and Apple [in Bondi] – it’s the ultimate spot. We’re fairly picky in where we select, because it needs to match the brand and that can take 12-18 months for the right [location] to come up,” he explained, adding that discussions around the Bondi store first began two years ago.
“We’re patient and we could have another store in a year or another two years – we’re willing to bide our time to wait for the next one.”
Meanwhile, Luxury Escapes’ Chadstone store has gone on to become “one of the world’s highest grossing travel stores” since it opened two years ago.
At the time, Schwab said he would have been happy if the space had “just broken even”.
“Now I’m pretty confident it’s the largest travel store by revenue in the world,” he said. “I think it’s on track to do about $100 million [in revenue] in the next couple of years.”
Agent Hub “a meaningful part” of Luxury Escapes
Launched last year in March, Luxury Escapes’ Agent Hub is growing 20% month-on-month and tripling its revenue year-on-year, said Schwab, describing the platform as “a meaningful part of our business”.
“It could be the majority of our business if this growth continues,” he said.
“We know how important consultants are to their clients and clients trust them for good reason and we want to be part of that journey. Even if our agent partners are used for just one component, we’d love to provide that.”
The business also recently brought on board two new agent representatives, based in Melbourne and Auckland, in addition to those in Brisbane and Sydney, as it plans to continue expanding the network.
“The reception from agents has been unbelievable and we’re looking at new partnerships across some networks,” he said. “We want to do more with the agent community.”
