Suddenly Sun City seems, er, cheap
DRIVE FOR SHOW: Gary Player drives a tractor during the construction of the golf course he designed for Sun City FOR your next vacation, forget about taking inspiration from Instagram. You’re going where no one has been before, on a trip no one has ever taken — and that no one after you will ever take again.
That’s the promise of Blink, a new ephemeral vacation service that high-end UK travel outfitter Black Tomato launched this week.
Pick a country or region, and Black Tomato will find a pristine parcel of land on which to build you a fully customised pop-up hotel, complete with staff and meals and excursions. You choose everything from the view to the bed linen to the bottles in your pop-up wine cellar. It’s tailor-made travel in the most literal way ever.
Tom Marchant, co-founder of Black Tomato, conceived of Blink as a response to the traction he saw from pop-up retail concepts. “Temporary experiences really excite people,” he said. “They create a sense of urgency.”
Those who create a trip using Blink will have — by Marchant’s calculations — more than 750 billion total trip combinations to choose from after all the granular details are factored in.
Marchant’s team has spent 18 months laying the groundwork for this project. “Blink is available anywhere in the world,” Marchant said. (Yes, that includes the Arctic.)
But he and his team will inspire clients with such farflung and exotic locations as the salt flats in Bolivia or Australia’s Kimberley region. Safarigoers might set up in Namibia or the Kalahari; culture fiends can head to Rajasthan or Myanmar’s Inle Lake; and action fanatics can choose from ski trips in Switzerland, northern lights spotting in Iceland, or riding the sand dunes in the Moroccan desert.
Once the general location is set, travellers can get into the nitty-gritty of designing their pop-up hotel from the ground up. In an effort to leave no trace behind, Marchant chose semipermanent (but highdesign) tents as the format for all Blink pop-ups, but you can choose from a variety of styles: canvas, domes, bubbles, yurts, tropical villa tents, and a few more.
The process can take place online — Marchant likened the experience to “choosing from a room-service menu” — or over the phone with an expert.
Depending on the remoteness of the location and how well established Black Tomato is in that area, it can take three to five months to execute a client’s vision.
Not only does it require a logistical superstorm to get all your preferences lined up and installed on site; Black Tomato also has to staff each camp individually. For some guests, that might mean daily housekeeping and a couple of great guides; for others, it could mean a sommelier, chef, and an astronomer for stargazing sessions.
Black Tomato expects to start small, commissioning roughly 10 to 20 trips in the first year and ultimately scaling it into the hundreds. “We have the infrastructure to support growth on this,” Marchant said.
“It’s not a mass proposition — it’s about the right people at the right time in the right place.”
Prices can range from $65 784 (about R925 000) for a group of six who want to spend three nights in Morocco to $177 600 for a group of six spending four nights in the Bolivian salt flats — excluding the cost of flights.
Blink is as appropriate for couples as it is for larger affairs.
“I can see a lot of proposals and engagements happening,” Marchant said. “The concept works on many levels: honeymooners looking for the ultimate secluded experience, family groups looking to celebrate a milestone event or birthday, groups of friends looking to escape together.” — Bloomberg
Temporary experiences really excite people. They create urgency