Inspirato Incorporated (NASDAQ:ISPO) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Inspirato Incorporated (NASDAQ:ISPO) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript November 10, 2023

Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Inspirato Third Quarter 2023 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference call over to your first speaker today, Kyle Sourk, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Kyle Sourk: Thank you, and good morning. On today’s call we have CEO, Eric Grosse, and CFO Robert Kaiden. Yesterday afternoon, we issued our press release announcing our third quarter 2023 results, which is available on the Investor Relations page of our website at investor.inspirato.com. Before we begin our formal remarks, we remind everyone that some of today’s comments are forward-looking statements, including but not limited to our expectations of future operating results and financial position, guidance and growth prospects, business strategy and plans and market position and potential market opportunities. These statements are based on assumptions and we assume no obligation to update them. Actual results could differ materially.

We refer you to our SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of additional. In addition, during the call, management will discuss non-GAAP measures, which are useful in evaluating the company’s operating performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release. With that, I’ll turn the call over to our CEO, Eric Grosse.

Eric Grosse : Thanks, Kyle, and good morning, everyone. It’s a privilege to speak with you for the first time as CEO. I have spent the past several months deeply engaging with employees, shareholders and members about our financial and operating plans. I’ve been a member of Inspirato for two years, so I am familiar with our broader successes as well as challenges. In my career, I have spent a lot of time in the online travel space namely as Co-Founder of Hotwire and President of Expedia Worldwide. I’ve seen firsthand what it takes to become a market leader and household name in the travel space and have developed a deep appreciation for creating exceptional and truly differentiated travel experiences. At Inspirato, I see a strong customer value proposition, supported by a world-class luxury residence portfolio and a passionate team dedicated to delivering members with certainty, service and value that creates the magical travel experiences Inspirato is known for.

In short, we have a compelling path to build on. And as we move forward, our decisions will be based on continuing to deliver wonderful member experiences while also becoming operationally more efficient. We deliver certainty to our portfolio of world-class homes. Our amazing residences enable family and friends to travel together in a more natural and familiar way that create lasting memories, while we also offer our members fantastic cruises, safaris and custom travel experiences, as the ski-in ski-out mountain home in Colorado, the rustic villas, the rolling hills of Tuscany, and hundreds of other hubs each with their own special touch that are Inspirato’s true color. Currently, we continue to innovate on our portfolio to make sure we are providing our members with the highest quality properties at the most desirable and popular destinations.

See also 20 Truly Extraordinary Whiskeys Under $75 and 25 Cheapest and Safest Places to Live in The World.

Q&A Session

While we’ve been trimming our portfolio in recent months, when the time comes in the future to once again grow our portfolio, my commitment is to do so thoughtfully, with member feedback top of mind. On the service side, our pre-trip planners are dedicated to ensuring travelers experience a remarkable vacation, while our on-site concierge staff are local experts, uniquely capable of putting the finishing touches on a great trip. While we excel in handling expected request like making dinner reservations at the best restaurants, arranging for private chef, booking spots at tea time, we also pride ourselves on delighting our members by delivering services that are more unique to Inspirato. Examples include stocking residence refrigerator and groceries requested by members ahead of travel, as well as ensuring our on-site concierge services are available across our residence portfolio to make sure member trips are truly personalized and unique.

Beyond delivering certainty of service associated with our residences and travel experiences, we’ve also redoubled our efforts to provide greater value to our members. In June, we rolled out rate reductions across the board; and in August, we launched our Rewards Program that provides up to 25% saves to our most frequent travelers and loyal members. These recent initiatives, when combined with existing programs like [Jive] provide great value to our members across the Inspirato portfolio. Over the years, we’ve worked tirelessly to build a loyal group of members that absolutely loves Inspirato. This is demonstrated through our Net Promoter Score, which has consistently been at industry-leading levels. While it had some turnover in parts of our subscriber base, our core group remained strong as evidenced by resiliency in our nice books per subscriber.

We have a strong action plan to address churn, which includes assets evaluating each of our travel offerings and subscriber cohorts with the end goal of improving what we deliver and how we deliver. While the weathered tremendous change and a variety of challenges over the past few years, we’ve never wavered in our member-centric approach, which is built on a foundation of world-class properties and Five Star services. We will continue to invest in our members and our strategic partnerships, including our recently signed agreements with Capital One. Through partnerships like Capital One and others that we have in development, we expect to increase Inspirato awareness with the luxury travel, which is an important initial step as we look ahead to grow Inspirato.

While I’m confident we can make these investments and rebuild our long term revenue momentum, we must first have an intentional focus on the short term by strengthening our fundamentals and improving our operating efficiency and financial position by controlling costs, improving margin, and strengthening our liquidity. These efforts are well underway and we expect to begin realizing some of the benefits in the fourth quarter. During the past few quarters, on these calls, we’ve articulated our plan to optimize our portfolio, primarily from a cost standpoint to help reach our profitability goals. I’m pleased to announce that these actions are progressing very well with a large portion of impact of leases rolling off at the end of the year. In addition, we’ve also further reduced our workforce earlier in the third quarter to help make us more nimble and better position for improved results.

From a liquidity standpoint, our strategic partnership with Capital One included a $25 million investment in Inspirato. As a result, we have greater resources and liquidity to better serve our members, both today and over the long term. In closing, our near-term plan is centered around improving our operating efficiencies and liquidity, which in turn positions us for a much stronger 2024. As we look ahead, it is important to note that we are not starting from scratch. We have our three Ps: portfolio, people, and partnerships in place to act as a foundation to achieve our goals. In future calls, I look forward to more specifically updating you on our plans to rebuild our revenue momentum, starting with our core products and partnerships. Before turning the call over to Robert to discuss our third quarter financial results, I’d like to personally thank our loyal members and homeowners for their support as well as pass along an aesthetic and heartfelt thank you to our employees for their continued passion, hard work and dedication to making Inspirato a magical destination for member travelers and one, a type of experience they can live with now.

With that, I’ll turn the call over to Robert.

Robert Kaiden : Thanks Eric. In the third quarter, we generated $83 million of total revenue, which was comprised of $33 million of subscription revenue and $49 million of travel revenue. While each of these metrics decreased on an annual basis, travel revenue was up sequentially, and we’re encouraged by some early signs of success related to our travel revenue. As you recall, on our year-end 2022 call in March, we highlighted travel behavior that was negatively impacting our travel revenue and gross margin, namely the mix between Paid and Pass nights, residence and hotel nights and then mix of nights in our leased hotels versus hotels with net rate agreements. We have focused on optimizing our travel mix to improve margins.