INFLUENCERS
PHOTOS: COURTESY INSPIRATO
// rooted in giving
Luxury Travel Innovator
BRENT HANDLER is a pioneer in the luxury travel industry, but despite all the places he’s experienced, he still calls Denver home. As told to Heather Shoning IN 2010, Brent Handler co-founded Inspirato, a luxury travel subscription business that has transformed the way people travel. The company provides its members access to a controlled portfolio of luxury properties and curated travel experiences. Despite extensive travel, Handler remains true to his Denver roots and gives back to his community in various ways. AVIDLIFESTYLE: Between Exclusive Resorts and Inspirato, you have spent more than 20 years in this industry. What have you learned so far? BRENT HANDLER: I have been blessed to spend most of my career in an industry that is incredibly fun, dynamic and challenging. As one of the founders of Exclusive Resorts in 2002, I learned that families really wanted better ways to be able to enjoy quality time with family and friends while on vacation. I also learned that the best way to do that was in a spacious home rather than in a cramped hotel room. In 2010, I left Exclusive Resorts along with my co-founders and started Inspirato. One of the
first things I learned was that if you can make luxury travel more affordable, you reach a far larger audience. If you can reach a larger audience, you can offer a significantly broader portfolio. This, in turn, makes your target audience even larger and your value proposition stronger. To create that affordability, the Inspirato business model is asset-light because we lease our homes (the Exclusive Resorts model was based on buying houses). I continue to learn new things every day, and we are a company that is constantly innovating. Learning new things from our members and employees is what makes the job fun. I guess I will know it’s time to hang it up when I stop learning. AL: How was Inspirato affected by the pandemic? BH: Like all travel companies, we were hit very hard by the pandemic. We made national news by being one of the first travel companies to do broad layoffs in mid-March of 2020 and ceased all operations until early summer. As 62
august 2022 // AvidLifestyle
BRENT HANDLER
a subscription business with extremely loyal members, we are beyond grateful for our families who continued to support us, even in the darkest days of the pandemic. By the time we got to the fall of 2020, it was clear that the return of travel was going to come roaring back, especially for the affluent families we serve. While risky at the time, we doubled down on inventory acquisition in 2020, locking up incredible partners so that when travel returned, we would be ready. That decision turned out to be the right one. Our growth in 2021 and 2022 has been fueled by the amazing portfolio that we have acquired in the past few years. Of note, since the layoffs in the spring of 2020, we have more than doubled our employee size, bringing back many of the same people who were let go when the pandemic began. AL: Are you doing anything new to prepare for a possible economic downturn, or do you not worry about that because your clientele is somewhat insulated from market fluctuations? BH: While our clientele is somewhat insulated from market fluctuations and our product
