There are several empty chairs around us. Stephanie Chai, however, invites me to share the couch she is curled up on. It comes naturally to someone who runs a business centred on making people feel at home.
The Luxe Nomad is the largest luxury vacation rental management company in Asia-Pacific. It manages more than 1,400 rooms across 100 properties in Hokkaido, Koh Samui, Phuket and Bali. Last year, it recorded US$63 million (S$80.2 million) in gross bookings at an EBITDA margin of 5.5 percent.
Every villa is privately owned. Chai’s job, in effect, is to persuade wealthy strangers to hand over the keys to their vacation homes, then persuade travellers that the result beats a hotel.
“The beauty of vacation rentals is that they aren’t cookie-cutter. Every property is unique,” says the 43-year-old. “We create standardisation through professional cleaning and luxury linens.”
The trade-off is the absence of hotel infrastructure, such as no restaurants and no curated calendar of events. But there are incentives. At The Luxe Nomad’s Phuket villas, private chefs charge only for groceries plus a 25 percent handling fee. Parents don’t have to worry about children disturbing other guests at the pool, or wonder where they’ve wandered off to.
The acquisition that changed the company came in 2023, when The Luxe Nomad acquired the management arm of Niseko Alpine Developments (Nisade), the Australian-founded firm that develops and operates luxury accommodation across Hokkaido’s ski belt. Nisade now accounts for 65 per cent of The Luxe Nomad’s room count. The takeover also doubled year-on-year sales on the back of a reservation platform and enhanced guest experience.
GUESTS TEST SERVICE, OWNERS TEST CONTROL
The daughter of a Malaysian father and Italian mother, Chai studied finance and international business before becoming a model and TV host. She launched The Luxe Nomad as a flash-sale accommodation platform in 2012 before pivoting to full villa management four years later.
Chai defines hospitality as discernment. “True luxury is service that listens but doesn’t follow the rules blindly. We train our team to think for themselves and go above and beyond.”
Photo: Stefan Khoo.
That instinct plays out in the details. A guest cancelled a ski helmet rental at a shop with a no-cancellation policy; Chai told her team to ring the shop and argue the refund through. When another guest arrived at a rental shop to find that his equipment wasn’t ready—a problem outside The Luxe Nomad’s remit—the company arranged transport to a second shop, paid the difference, and sent a VIP gift box. “I hate to fail, so I love turning things around for an unhappy guest. However, I draw the line at guests who abuse other guests or our staff or damage property.”
In her experience, mismatched expectations do more damage than any service lapse. After complaints about a basement-like room in one property, she renamed it and made advance disclosure of the location a standard protocol. “Since they know what to expect, it’s no longer an issue,” Chai concludes.
Managing property owners introduces its own set of tensions. If guests test the service, owners test her tolerance for control. Most of them don’t list their vacation homes because they need an additional income stream, so trust is the currency, not contract terms.
According to Chai, property owners are usually very reasonable, so termination of a partnership is rare. The deals she walks away from are more revealing than the ones she signs. One owner refused to install safety railings around a children’s room near a two-metre drop. Another itemised every purchase to the cent and refused to put chairs in the staff room.
“That’s where it ended for me. I won’t manage a property where the staff don’t even have a place to sit in.”
Stephanie Chai on where she draws the line
The conviction matters because the responsibilities are split. “In our business model, the owners are responsible for maintenance and upkeep, but management and execution are down to us.”
JAPAN market AND ITS LIMITS
Australians are The Luxe Nomad’s biggest market as they love Hokkaido’s superior skiing options. The second biggest cohort is the one that caught Chai by surprise. “Before the Covid pandemic, Americans were our eighth-largest market, but now they’re the second largest. Everyone I met in the US last year talked about Japan,” she notes. Asian travellers account for roughly half the business, led by Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Taiwan. Chinese guests, once a meaningful share, have effectively vanished since the pandemic.
Chai doesn’t benchmark against any single competitor. Airbnb and Booking.com appear as both rivals and distribution partners. So, who does she see as the company’s real competition? “Honestly, we compete with everyone, large and small, but there isn’t a single competitor we benchmark ourselves against. Different companies have different strengths,” she says. The company’s exclusive management rights also prevents guests from bypassing the platform to book directly with owners.
Chai insists that expansion should be deliberate, not opportunistic. Despite exploring further acquisitions since buying Nisade, she is determined to avoid overpaying or settling on poor locations that might weaken the portfolio.
Even so, she sees significant room for growth in dense markets. However, entering an unfamiliar destination with, say, just five villas poses a serious challenge, since an entire operational set-up must be created around them. The smallest market The Luxe Nomad has ventured into was Phuket with 10 villas.
“We struggled because we weren’t the market leader in Phuket,” Chai admits. The experience reshaped the company’s approach to new markets. “Now, the question is not, ‘Can we find good villas here?’ but rather, ‘Can we achieve market leadership quickly and credibly?’ Rather than build organically, the company prefers to acquire, which is why M&A is central to our strategy.”
When growth accelerates again, and there are big plans for the next two years, Japan will remain an anchor for the business. Overtourism, the nightmare of Kyoto and Osaka, isn’t relevant in Niseko. “We don’t get busloads of tourists. It’s specifically for skiing and snowboarding. It isn’t an apple-to-apple comparison.”
Within Southeast Asia, Phuket is the priority. Bali is not. Bali’s villa supply has run ahead of demand, and the market is the region’s most exposed to any pullback in consumer spending. “During February, our occupancy was down 20 percent year on year. I do think it will bounce back. But out of all the markets in the region, it’s the most sensitive.”
New markets are currently off the table. Vietnam lacks high-end private-villa inventory: while large luxury chains like Aman and Six Senses have established a presence, The Luxe Nomad works with private owners so its model cannot be optimised there. Singapore’s rental market is highly regulated and China has seen a significant drop in its outbound travel sector following the pandemic. “Most of their travel is still domestic, and it’s unclear if and when it will recover.”
behind the villas
The company currently employs about 250 full-time staff, with approximately 100 of them based in Hokkaido. To accommodate the influx of skiers, 200 seasonal workers are hired at the properties around the island each winter. In addition to its main back office in the Philippines, the company has satellite offices in every operating market and an accounting department in Malaysia.
Staff management is Chai’s greatest challenge in running a company of this scale. “We have grown from two employees and two cats to over 200 full-time staff today. It’s been a tremendous growth spurt. I have had to adapt my leadership style as managing diverse backgrounds and personalities has become more complex with more people reporting to me.”
During Covid, the business was almost brought to its knees. As revenue plummeted to zero, Chai says the business stayed afloat only through hard work and adaptability. Difficult decisions had to be made. As a result of natural attrition, the COO and other heads of department left and cleared paths for the deputies. Her team also took pay cuts, but hers was the largest at 70 percent.
There is also the challenge of dealing with pushbacks simply because she is a woman. “There were some situations I would not have experienced if I were a typical male boss. I’m still learning how to navigate that.”
The current climate sees her cautious. “In business, you never know what will happen, so it’s about balancing the pendulum between growth and preparedness. Bookings have held steady so far, but the company is closely monitoring costs and cutting non-essential spending.”
Her team has noticed something on the ground. Guests have been harder to deal with this season than the last. Chai isn’t surprised. “People seem more stressed and anxious than they used to be. It’s probably because we’re all living in an uncertain world.”
What’s being built
In addition to launching new properties, rebranding is underway. The Luxe Nomad will transition to Luxe Nomad—removing the often-overlooked article. “People don’t realise the ‘the’ in our name,” Chai says. She secured the new domain LuxeNomad.com for US$350,000. “It was originally US$800,000, so at least the price went down,” she remarks with a laugh. This refresh will feature a complete design overhaul and is set for the end of the year.
A tiering system is also in development. It will rank properties on furnishings and build standards rather than location. “You could have an amazing villa in the middle of nowhere that isn’t beachfront, so the tiers will focus on furnishings, build standards, and other tangible features rather than location,” Chia explains.
She is also exploring a Tinder-style app to match skiers with instructors. “Right now, ski lessons are booked via email or WhatsApp, and you’re assigned whoever is available. The Luxe Nomad doesn’t supply instructors itself—the concierge recommends the school that fits.”
External recognition has also caught up. Chai has been selected for the EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women Asia-Pacific Class of 2026, a prestigious programme that recognises 23 trailblazing female founders from 12 markets behind some of the region’s fastest-growing and most innovative companies. The cohort, which supports over 30,000 jobs globally, generated over US$1.6 billion in revenue in 2025.
Still, she would rather not romanticise the business. “I do it because I want to unite different markets through one brand. However, I wouldn’t recommend moving to Bali and becoming a villa manager unless it’s your passion and you want to live there.” Beyond that, the work itself is unforgiving: difficult guests, difficult owners, thin margins. It works at The Luxe Nomad’s scale. It won’t work at most others.
“I had a friend call me recently and say, ‘I want to do villa management in Bali. Any tips?’
“I said, ‘Yes, don’t do it’.”
Photography Stefan Khoo
Styling Chia Wei Choong
Hair Sean Ang using Goldwell
Makeup Keith Bryant Lee using Dior Beauty
Photography assistant Chong Ng
Styling assistant Megan Lim
