Evolution underway for Getaway Lounge

Evolution underway for Getaway Lounge
By admin


Deals website Getaway Lounge has taken on a new name, Luxury Escapes, as its new owners expand its product range to include flights, cruises and tours.

Aussie Commerce, the owners of Ouffer, acquired the site from the Nine network along with Kudo in June, and relaunched it as Luxury Escapes this week.

The new site is highly content driven with both online and iPad editions of a magazine created by an in-house team now available, Aussie Commerce managing director Adam Schwab told Travel Today.

It will also expand its range of product over the next six weeks to enable customers to build packages around their selected deal, he revealed.

"Luxury Escapes will be a fully licensed travel agent," he said. "We will broaden its offering beyond purely land-based deals to offer a whole range of travel product."

Cruise, airfares and activities will all be made available. However, Schwab stressed Luxury Escapes will differ from an online travel agent through its offer of highly discounted short-term offers which are negotiated directly with hoteliers.

"There's almost a waiting list for our partners to get on," he said. Despite the high discounts, hoteliers are attracted to the site by the low level of risk, he added.

"It's very rare that a hotel is 100% occupied. Even if it's at 80% , we can get it to 90% or 100%."

Additional value can be derived from customers through sales of food and beverage or activities, with the properties also benefiting from an individual marketing campaign.

Its "loyal" customer base of 250,000 subscribers means that it has a high rate of repeat sales in the region of between 40% and 50%.

Meanwhile, Schwab was confident that the deals segment of the market is showing signs of improving, despite some high profile failures within the sector in recent times.

"We've seen the number of competitors drop from 18 to five," he said.

"We've been through the boom, we've been through the bust – now it's a really nice period that is much more orderly which is great for consumers and merchants."

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