Boutique destination club, the Lusso Collection, introduced a 21-day membership plan that effectively replaces its group- and corporate-level plans. The new Lusso 21 plan will be the club’s entry-level offering, and carries a deposit price tag that is $100,000 less than the destination club’s unlimited plan.

The shift, says Lusso’s director of marketing Lisa Bergerson, is to attract potential members who simply travel less and think that a plan with an unlimited number of travel days may be underutilized. The bulk of Lusso members are traveling around 30 days a year, according to Bergerson, and just a handful top 60 days of vacation a year with the club.

The Lusso 21 plan allows two standard reservations to be booked at any one time, versus four under the unlimited plan. It also includes one advanced reservation a year and allows members to gift one week a year. Access to holiday reservations are the same as under the unlimited plan. The 21-day plan will be capped at 50 members. Lusso plans on closing the club to new entrants once it reaches 550 members.

The plan requires a deposit of $325,000 and annual dues of $21,000. Compared to comparable plans at other destination clubs, the deposit amount is higher, but the annual dues are generally lower. For instance, Exclusive Resorts’ 20-day plan requires a $200,000 deposit, with annual dues of $19,900, but the plan does not include holiday access. It’s 30-day plan, at $270,000, comes in at less than the cost of the Lusso plan, but annual fees exceed the Lusso 21 by nearly $9,000 a year. Ultimate Escapes’ Elite plan includes 21 days for $300,000 and annual dues of $25,000, a slightly lower deposit cost than the Lusso 21, but higher annual fees. Quintess, LRW also has a 20-day holiday plan with a $250,000 deposit and annual dues that come in at some $2,000 less.

Another way to evaluate the price of a membership is to look at its cost-per-night. The membership deposit at Lusso is 100 percent refundable—most other large destination clubs offer a 75 or 80 percent refund promise—and that dramatically impacts its basic cost-per-night. Assuming that a member stays with the club for ten years, the basic cost-per-night for the Lusso 21 is $1,000, lower than comparable plans at other clubs.

Lusso’s new plan replaces the corporate and group plans, which had deposit membership requirements topping $500,000, but included 56-days of use a year. The new offering is yet another sign that the destination club industry is increasingly casting a wider membership net by beefing up plans on the entry-level. In recent years, other destination clubs have expanded their membership offerings to include more plans that include just a week or two of use a year. A $325,000 deposit is hardly geared toward the value traveler, but the move by Lusso shows that even boutique destination club players are widening their scope.

For more information about entry-level plans at all destination clubs, download our Decision Guide to Destination Clubs.

Readers, do you think the key to destination club growth is more club membership options at the entry-level of the market? Leave a comment below.