Luxury Escapes is considering launching an independent agent model that would give travel advisors access to an exclusive Luxury Escapes platform and product suite, its CEO and co-founder Adam Schwab has revealed.
Speaking exclusively to Travel Weekly, Schwab said the business was looking at the model “in the next year or so”, as it looks to deepen its relationship with travel advisors and reach customers who would not otherwise book directly with Luxury Escapes.
Under the proposed model, agents would have access to a dedicated Luxury Escapes platform, with exclusive products, high commissions, flights, tours, hotel inventory and marketplace offers available through one system.
“Imagine the Luxury Escapes platform for consumers, but for agents,” Schwab said. “Giving agents the ability to use us exclusively, and it’s effectively a solution in a box for agents, which no one really provides particularly well.”
He said agents currently have to use “a bunch of disparate systems”.
“Especially if you’re new to the industry, instead of having to learn the complexities of Sabre and Amadeus, you can literally use our platform like a consumer.”
The proposed model would build on the rapid growth of Agent Hub, which Schwab said was growing “at a much faster rate than the rest of our business”.
Faith in agents
Schwab said the company believed travel agents would remain particularly important for high-value travel.
“The death of travel agents has been called for like 25 years, and everyone’s been wrong,” he said.
“If anything, agents have become more important since COVID. I think people want that trusted source of advice.”
He argued that for a $20,000+ trip, using an agent made sense if the advisor could earn enough to spend genuine time researching and booking the trip.
“Even at $20,000, as long as the agent can make enough money to spend genuine time with you and book your trip, it really doesn’t make sense not to use one.”
Schwab said the proposed model would allow Luxury Escapes to reach customers it might not otherwise appeal to.
“We know there’s a lot of customers who are super loyal to their agents. They would never come to us, so we’d rather access those customers via the agent, and obviously give the agent significant compensation.”
