The luxury flash sale site Secret Escapes this week announced it would partner with Jetsetter, an agreement that will give the U.K.-based Secret Escapes greater entree into the U.S. and global clout as it works to expand its presence and offerings beyond last-minute hotel deals.
Under the agreement, Secret Escapes will handle all the flash-deal bookings for Jetsetter, which is part of the TripAdvisor family, giving members of its U.S. and Europe sites access to hundreds of sales each week.
Tom Valentine, COO and co-founder of Secret Escapes, said that European hotels and tour operators would gain access “to a big chunk of U.S-based traffic, and the opposite is also true” as travel companies will be able to list their sales on either or both sites.
And while the rebound in luxury spending led to predictions in recent years of the demise of flash-sale sites, which gained popularity during the recession as luxury companies sought to sell off oversupply, Valentine says flash deals done right are now very much a part of the luxury travel ecosystem.
“It’s always more complex than the headlines would have you believe,” he said, noting that “asking hotels to pay an unsustainable commission on an unsustainable discount was never really a viable business model.” But working with hotels and tour operators to sell off their unbooked inventory is alive and well, he said, adding that the average hotel is on average only about 70% booked.
“Ninety percent of people who book with us weren’t planning the trip before they got the email from us,” he said. “So they get to keep that 70% of trade that would happen anyway.”
The difference between Secret Escapes and some flash sale sites, he said, is that Secret Escapes carefully vets all of its offerings and it is very much focused on expanding beyond hotels; for example, working with tour operators to also offer full packages.
“We do a lot of this in Europe,” he said. “What really works is when the tour operator is able to pull together something really special for the consumer.”
Valentine says he believed Secret Escape was the single largest inbound seller from Europe to Iceland last year with such partnerships.
All of Secret Escapes offerings are handpicked by a team of travel experts, he said.
“There is a real curation element,” he said. “So when a tour operator has something really special … we can send it to 20 million core members; more now with Jetsetter. We can make people aware there is something really surprising and affordable out there."
The deal with Jetsetter, he said, bolsters the company’s efforts to continue growing all areas of its business.
“I wouldn’t dispute that some flash-sale companies have had a poor run of business,” Valentine said. “We’ve been doing this four-and-a-half years now. We’ve been working hard on the U.S. for just about a year now. … We see that the death of flash-sale sites might have been somewhat exaggerated.”