Stephanie Chai: “Even back then, we foresaw that our end game would require us to expand beyond flash sales.”
TheLuxeNomad.com founder Stephanie Chai may not always lead a glamorous life – she usually flies budget on short haul trips – but her hotel and villa-booking site certainly conjures up images of the good life. With over 1,000 properties on offer, the site serves up arresting images of high-end hotels and villas at low season prices.
The site first launched in 2012, offering flash sales on luxury accommodation at a time when discount offers with time limits was at its zenith, with cash-strapped consumers embracing this model of buying.
Chai, inspired by a similar site in North America, decided that she could (and would) build the same business in Asia. She ploughed in her own capital gleaned through her previous career as a model, translating her ambition to an innovative business.
What made the site more than a flash-in-the-pan was Chai’s foresight: by the time flash sale fatigue had hit our general consciousness, she had already pivoted the company to a more sustainable model.
“Even back then, we foresaw that our end game would require us to expand beyond flash sales,” she said. 
The reason for this is the high costs associated with consistently finding new deals and of building up new databases because, she explained, “After a few months people get tired of your sales focused emails.”
However, she added, “Start-up trends [do] come in waves: there was the group deal/flash sales trend, then the sharing economy and now the subscription model is in favour. Of course not all business models last forever, as with everything; they usually need to evolve.”
The next step in the company’s evolution was the launch of WanderLuxe, an online magazine that complements the booking site, which Chai describes as a way to “break up the monotony of sales-driven emails.”
Although Chai and her team have embraced the era of content marketing, she admits it has been a learning curve. “Our writers came from print backgrounds and had to retrain themselves all over again as writing for the online reader is completely different from print. It’s very Buzzfeed like, very Elite Daily,” she said.
Blackrock Villa, Santorini – Greece is becoming a hot favourite among Asian travellers
Inspired by online retail trailblazer net-a-porter’s magazine, The Edit, WanderLuxe’s visitor count has nearly doubled within the period of a few months, now attracting 30,000 unique visitors monthly. Interestingly, net-a-porter is now encroaching on traditional media, with its in-house magazine Porter positioned as a direct rival to fashion’s bigwig, Vogue.
While there are no plans afoot to launch a printed travel magazine, TheLuxeNomad.com is positioning itself to tap into the growth market of outbound Asian travellers. European villa bookings are already cropping up on the site and there are further plans to increase the number of Australian properties on offer by about 200 or so, according to Chai.
“The split between Asia and overseas will become more like 65/35, especially since so many Asians are going to Europe, and Greece in particular,” she said.
Chai is composed and one of the more media-friendly entrepreneurs, due in part to her experience as a TV presenter, actress and model. In the start-up world where the founder is often the voice and face of the business, how does Chai – admittedly very photogenic – ensure she is taken seriously?
“When I meet investors, I definitely won’t turn up in a short skirt. I make it a point not to giggle or flirt my way to getting a deal done,” she said.
She does not consider being female a disadvantage. “When it comes to selling, women are actually very good at managing both sexes; a lot of my clients are female and I don’t think there are any issues in Asia with being a female entrepreneur, so many of us are already in the workforce,” she added.
Attracting inital funding from investors was “not hard, because flash sales were in trend.”
“One of our early venture capitalists told me that had we been in the luxury vacation rental space in the early days they probably wouldn’t have approved our funding as Airbnb was still very ‘grey’ area and not the hit it is now.”
The growth of TheLuxeNomad.com may be more than serendipitous: it has cornered the market on travel escapism and with that, become one of the best startup stories from this region. However, it is by no means the only contender in the market.
Airbnb’s worldwide growth is continuing at an accelerated pace and the peer-to-peer accommodation rental portal has already set its sights on China. In a CNBC interview, Airbnb’s chief technology officer and co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk discussed the company’s strategy to integrate native Chinese payment systems into the site and tap into Chinese social networks. This strategy, combined with the site’s global reach, has serious potential to crowd out other contenders.
Chai, however, remains upbeat about her prospects. TheLuxeNomad.com is in the business of building trust and inspiring dreams; as long as travellers and villa owners lack time, there will be a market for sites that offer curated properties.
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