Are luxury camping - or 'glamping' - retreats the future of weekend getaways?

Collective Retreats, a startup based in Denver, Colorado, wants to disrupt the hospitality industry by building where their competitors can't. The company develops luxury camping, or glamping, retreats across the country, inviting guests to reconnect with nature and each other.

"We look for places that you'd really want to be, where traditional hotels wouldn't or couldn't exist — the sides of mountains, the middle of a vineyard, or on the edge of a beautiful farm in the Hudson Valley," Peter Mack, founder and CEO of Collective Retreats, tells Business Insider.

Take a look at how Collective Retreats is rethinking the hotel experience.

Peter Mack spent 10 years at Starwood Hotels & Resorts, where he worked his way up from dishwasher to senior director of sales strategy. "I started to get frustrated because it became very apparent to me that the traditional hotel model is broken," Mack says. 

Most hotels and resorts spend the vast majority of revenue on real estate and upkeep, according to Collective Retreats. Mack and his team set out to flip the model on its head.

Collective Retreats partners with property owners whose land cannot be used for hotel development because of a lack of infrastructure or zoning laws, but are interested in listing it on the hospitality market. The company leases the land and builds retreats there. 

Increasingly, consumers are ditching traditional vacations for "experiential travel," like staying in a tiny home, glamping, or booking a stranger's home through Airbnb.

Collective Retreats is what Mack calls "asset-light," which may be an understatement. The company's retreats feature luxury canvas tents spread at least 150 feet apart.

This is no ordinary camping experience, however. The tents provide access to the outdoors plus the "comforts of a Four Seasons," Mack says. They range from US$500 to US$700 a night.