Best Practice Series — Vol. 19: Collective Retreats — The Asset-Light Model That Turned the Hotel Industry Upside Down

The traditional hotel business model is broken. Most of the revenue goes into the building. At Collective Retreats, there is no building. All of that money goes into the experience instead. — Peter Mack, Founder & CEO

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The Insight That Built a $123 Million Company
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Peter Mack spent ten years at Starwood Hotels & Resorts — long enough to travel 250 days in a single year, sleep in enough hotel beds to form a detailed opinion of what they were and weren't offering, and develop a clear view of where the conventional hotel business model was structurally failing. The insight he brought out of that decade is, in retrospect, obvious. But very few people in the hospitality industry had acted on it before Mack did.
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The insight was this: in a conventional hotel, the majority of revenue is spent on the physical building — its construction, its maintenance, its taxes, its insurance, and the infrastructure required to keep it functioning. These costs are enormous, they are unavoidable, and they compound over time. They also have almost nothing to do with the quality of the guest experience. They are the price of having a building, not the price of having a good stay. And if the building is the problem — if it is the thing eating the budget that should be going into the experience — then the solution is to remove the building.
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Just like how over the course of the last 20 years design hotels reinvigorated the hotel industry, I believe that in the next 15 to 20 years, experiential hotels will do the same. — Peter Mack

The Model: No Buildings, Full Hospitality
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Collective Retreats was founded in 2015. The model Mack developed is conceptually radical: luxury hospitality delivered through a collection of five to fifteen sumptuously appointed tents that serve as guestrooms, one communal lodge tent, and a staff that integrates itself into the setting. The physical footprint of a Collective Retreats installation is minimal and entirely temporary. Properties are set up on remote land — vineyards, farms, mountain properties — where a permanent hotel could not or would not be built. They operate seasonally, generating revenue during the high season and removing their physical presence when the season ends.

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The guest experience, however, is anything but minimal. Chef-led tableside dining using locally sourced ingredients is included in every retreat. The tents themselves are outfitted with 1,500 thread-count sheets, chandeliers, Wi-Fi, and full en-suite bathrooms with hot showers. Wine tastings, in-tent massages, guided activities, and communal fire circles are part of the standard offer. The price point — $500 to $700 per night during peak season — positions Collective Retreats firmly in the upper tier of experiential accommodation, competing not with glamping sites but with five-star boutique hotels.

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The Locations: Iconic and Unexpected

Collective Retreats has operated locations in the mountains of Montana and Yellowstone, the vineyards of Sonoma, the ranch lands of Colorado, the Hudson Valley of New York, Vail, Hill Country Texas, and — one of the most striking examples in its portfolio — Governors Island, just an eight-minute water taxi ride from downtown Manhattan. The Governors Island location demonstrated the full potential of the asset-light model: a luxury outdoor retreat within the skyline of New York City, on an island that no hotel could occupy permanently, accessible by boat, and generating waiting lists from its first season.
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More recently, Collective Retreats announced a partnership with NEOM — the Saudi Arabian smart city development — to launch an eco-centric retreat in Trojena, a snow-capped mountain destination in northwestern Saudi Arabia. The brand has also developed The Conservatory: a curated community of design-forward, nature-connected hotel partners operating under the Collective umbrella — extending its reach beyond its own installations and into a broader portfolio of affiliated properties.
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The Capital and the B-Corp
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Collective Retreats has raised approximately $123 million across multiple funding rounds, with the most recent — $90 million — closed in June 2021, led by investors including Fireside Investments and Outdoorsy. The company is B-Corp certified — one of the largest B-Corp certified hospitality brands in the world — reflecting a commitment to social and environmental performance that is embedded in the company's legal structure rather than bolted on as a communications initiative.
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The B-Corp status matters strategically as well as ethically. It signals to a specific and growing category of guest — purpose-driven, sustainability-conscious, and willing to pay a premium for alignment with their values — that Collective Retreats is the real thing. It is not a brand claiming sustainability. It is a brand that has submitted to independent certification of its environmental and social performance.
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What Collective Retreats Proves
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Collective Retreats proves that the physical constraints of the conventional hotel model — land acquisition, construction, planning permission, permanent infrastructure — are not inherent to delivering a five-star guest experience. They are choices. And when those choices are removed, the capital that would have gone into the building can be redirected entirely into the experience: better food, better service, better programming, better locations.
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The asset-light model is not for every operator. It requires operational flexibility, strong relationships with landowners, and the logistical capability to install and de-install a complete hospitality operation at scale. But for operators thinking about how to enter the market quickly, at lower capital cost, and with the ability to test locations before committing to permanent development, Collective Retreats is the most complete demonstration of what is possible.

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