Although he would not reveal the discounted rates for his hotel’s rooms on the Inspirato website, he noted that 1 Hotel lists its higher-end rooms, as well as its unbooked inventory.
For Michael Shaw Jr., a 45-year-old car dealer in Denver, buying an Inspirato Pass was a natural extension of his regular Inspirato membership, which he’s had for five years. Handler says that about half of Inspirato’s members have also bought into the Inspirato Pass.
Since he got the pass in June through Inspirato’s test program in the Denver area, Shaw has already been to Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Park City, Utah, along with a jaunt to the British Virgin Islands, where just he and his wife stayed in a 9,000-square-foot home.
“That’s the beauty of the pass; it wasn’t going to change the economics of it for us,” he says of the generous space.
Unlike, say, Hulu or Birchbox subscriptions that you can cancel after a month, Inspirato pass customers make an initial six-month commitment to stick with the payments, after which they have an opportunity to cancel every month.
Tien Tzuo, CEO of Zuora, which provides software for companies to launch and manage subscription businesses, says the subscription model is successful because it’s a good deal for consumers and exposes them to new things—in this case, new travel locations. Inspirato is using Zuroa’s software to manage its pass program.
“It’s not just about how I can save on that nightly rate,” Tzuo says. “My whole experience different now. I can try out new cities and experiences.”
Hotels from Inspirato
But Devy Schonfeld, a business professor at Pasadena City College who has studied the subscription economy, questions whether there will be consistent consumer demand for the pass.
“Luxury travel purchases can be ‘chunky’ in that time is a restricting factor, and even if people travel luxuriously, the ability to take enough trips to maximize value will be a gating factor,” he wrote in an email.