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Membership-driven venues are becoming product distribution channels; partner with spaces that have recurring foot traffic and share economics.
Proper Hospitality is retooling the hotel business model around membership, not transient stays. According to Glossy, the group is building a wellness-first blueprint with recurring membership and brand partnerships at the center, positioning its properties as community hubs rather than transaction points. Brian De Lowe, president and co-founder, and Jamie Mark, senior vice president of memberships and partnerships, outlined the strategy in an interview with the publication.
The mechanics are straightforward. Proper is selling tiered memberships that grant year-round access to amenities—fitness facilities, rooftop spaces, event programming—independent of booking a room. Members pay an annual or monthly fee for access to physical spaces and curated product experiences from partner brands. The hotel becomes a venue for ongoing engagement rather than episodic consumption. Proper is also structuring partnerships with wellness brands to stock rooms, spas, and retail corners, turning guest touchpoints into distribution and trial opportunities for physical products.
The model works because it solves a margin problem and a frequency problem simultaneously. Hotels traditionally monetize real estate by selling room nights, which carry high variable costs and low repeat purchase rates. Membership revenue is recurring, predictable, and decoupled from housekeeping and turnover expense. It also creates a captive audience for product placement and sampling. A guest who stays twice a year has limited exposure to a partner brand; a member who visits weekly becomes a conversion funnel. The hotel shifts from landlord to curator, and the economics shift from occupancy rate to lifetime value.
For physical-product brands, this is a distribution play that scales without retail rent. Partner with a membership-driven venue—hotel, coworking space, fitness club—and negotiate product placement as part of the member experience. The venue gets differentiation and potential revenue share; you get recurring exposure to a qualified, opted-in audience. Start small: approach a local yoga studio or boutique gym with a membership base. Offer product for their welcome kits, locker rooms, or retail shelf on consignment or a trial period. Track redemption or purchase through a unique code or landing page. If conversion justifies cost, expand to additional locations or negotiate an exclusive partnership.
The sequence for a small brand: identify venues in your category with existing membership models, propose a three-month pilot supplying product at cost plus a percentage of retail sales, provide point-of-sale materials and member education, measure sales per visit and repeat purchase rate, then scale to a regional or national partnership if unit economics hold. The cost is product cost plus collateral. The return is a repeat-exposure channel with built-in trust and no shelf fee. The venue becomes your retail proxy, and the member becomes your repeat buyer.
The broader pattern is that physical spaces with recurring access models are becoming distribution networks for consumer products. The hotel is just the largest format. Any brand with a membership layer and foot traffic is a potential channel partner, and the economic logic favors product brands willing to trade upfront margin for frequency and data.
Approach one local membership venue with product for a consignment trial; track sales per visit and expand if conversion justifies cost.
For the operator
Negotiate tiered partnerships with membership venues in key markets; provide POS materials and measure repeat purchase rate to scale nationally.
For the house
Source wellness and lifestyle products through membership-venue partnerships; pilot curated kits for events or employee programs with tracked redemption.
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