Real Estate
Regular people can pay for a day pass to swim in pools at Ritz-Carlton hotels. Here’s the pitch deck ResortPass used to raise $26 million from investors like The Points Guy, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jessica Alba.
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- ResortPass offers a way for people to book hotel amenities like a spa, pool, or meeting room.
- The company raised $26 million in a Series B round from travel investors and entrepreneurial celebs.
- Its newly appointed CEO, Michael Wolf, walked Insider through the pitch deck he used to raise cash.
The COVID-19 pandemic hit hotels and resorts so hard that the industry might not reach prepandemic levels of employment until at least 2031, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Many hotel operators have shut their doors, and those that haven’t are playing catch-up, squeezing extra revenue from wherever they can.
Recognizing this, one company wants to help hundreds of hotels turn amenities like their pools, spas, and meeting rooms into extra income by looking beyond their guests.
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ResortPass, founded in 2016, works with over 900 hotels — including brand names like Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, Hilton, and Marriott — to sell day passes to amenities. Its newly appointed CEO, Michael Wolf, a tech-marketplace veteran who ran operations at the fitness-class-booking app ClassPass, said that over 1.5 million users had booked amentiies through the app.
ResortPass recently raised a $26 million Series B round co-led by the growth-equity firm Declaration Partners and the venture-capital firm 14W, bringing it to a total of $37 million of cash raised. The round included contributions from CRV, an early investor; AirAngels, a syndicate of early Airbnb employees; Brian Kelly, more commonly known as The Points Guy; Gwyneth Paltrow; and Jessica Alba, among others. The company declined to provide a valuation.
Wolf said the fact that investors including wellness-focused celebrity entrepreneurs and hospitality-industry veterans laid down millions was a testament to the company’s strategy, especially in an otherwise cratering market for tech investments.
“My existing investors had highlighted to me that the funding environment is the most difficult it’s been in 20 years,” Wolf told Insider.
Wolf, who was a consultant to his predecessor, compared ResortPass to Airbnb because of its ability to create a marketplace for space that might otherwise be underused and not generating revenue. He said ResortPass was operating efficiently, though not yet at a profit.
ResortPass is focused on ease of use for hotels, according to Wolf. The company provides an app for users to book as well as software to manage booking, occupancy, and pricing for the hotels.
Wolf said hotels had been reaching out to ResortPass to get amenities such as flexible working space added to the app.
Wolf walked Insider through the pitch deck he used to help raise the app’s recent funding round below.
ResortPass’ goal is to open up hospitality amenities to people who aren’t booking a hotel room, providing new sources of revenue for operators.
“We’re inventing this market,” its CEO, Michael Wolf, said. He described the firm’s app as the first to focus on non-overnight guests for hotels.
The app helps people book whatever a hotel has to offer, such as cabanas by the pool, massages, meeting rooms, and even access to hotel-sponsored events. It also provides tools to help hotels manage demand.
The company said most of its 1.6 million users so far were locals looking to “daycation” at nearby hotels, while roughly a third were travelers looking to add amenities to their vacation.
Wolf said the company knows it’s been successful when hotels ask it for new features, such as booking for meeting rooms.
The company said people who began using the app last year had already brought in more than 4 times the money it cost to bring them on the app, describing it as a sign that customers were returning and enjoying their experiences.
ResortPass says it has over 900 hotel clients after adding more than 200 since this pitch deck was created earlier this year. The names range from the swanky Four Seasons to the dependable Marriott.
While the hospitality industry has had a chaotic few years, ResortPass described amenities as a bright spot able to turn into major revenue streams for hotels.
For example, Accor, a ResortPass client, estimated last year that a significant portion of revenue from so-called lifestyle hotels came from locals.
Source: Skift
The company’s pitch deck included a few more quotes from hotels that love its service.
The company described the potential market for its app and software for hotel day-use booking as huge.
The company’s pitch is not only that it’s built a good product but that it’s beating anyone else to the market.
Wolf, the company’s new CEO, brings relevant experience from ClassPass.
The final slide summarizes the pitch and says the company has been “capital efficient,” a new buzzword for investors who’ve been burned by high-spending tech companies.