The company will use these stores both as major sales drivers and as branding and marketing platforms.
This forward-thinking strategy was unveiled by co-founder Adam Schwab (above) during an address at the IMM conference in Sydney last week.
“We really tried to set out to create the Apple store of travel,” Mr Schwab told an audience of travel media, industry leaders and destination representatives.
“We’ve got two retail stores now, one in Bondi and one in Chadstone, which I’m pretty sure is the number one travel store globally. I think we are getting close to 100 million dollars in sales at that one store.”
That result is even more impressive given that the Luxury Escapes board was less than enthusiastic when Mr Schwab originally pitched the retail store idea.
“The board thought it was a stupid idea…so I did it anyway. Thankfully it turned out well, because people wouldn’t have liked it too much if it turned out badly.”
Asked where the next location might be, Mr Schwab said negotiations were still ongoing but Queensland was the likely destination.
“We are guided by the site and less about the city or the state. We really want to focus on location, partly about foot traffic and partly about credibility.”
Despite interest rate hikes and cost‑of‑living pressures, Mr Schwab said that the company’s sharp pricing combined with the “insatiable demand for travel” shown by Australians has been great news for their bottom line.
“We have been able to grow our top line by 30 to 40% over the last couple of years even as many of our competitors are generally shrinking from the travel space.”
Mr Schwab added that Luxury Escapes has now moved from “industry disruptor” when it was founded back in2013 to a valued partner for travel agents.
“When we came in everybody kind of hated us,” he said, adding that agents thought the brand was “cannibalising them.” That attitude has softened over the years and changed dramatically when the company launched Agent Hub in 2024.
“We now sell to agents and it’s one of the fastest growing parts of our business, with the agent community going from ‘hating’ us to kind of liking us now. Agent hub could be a billion-dollar business for us in the next couple of years.”
Looking ahead, Mr Schwab revealed the company is planning to launch a credit card in four months that will be “the most generous, or equally most generous, points earning card in Australia.”
Luxury Escapes is also taking off into the aviation business with a direct charter to the Maldives.
“We’re really excited about that and we are also looking at other charters into our Signature Series.
“We are just getting better at what we do. More destinations, more efficient, better marketing, better sales, all that stuff.”
