In private sales, Rue La La offers Gucci watches, Armani sunglasses, hotel stays

Private sales on password-protected Web pages are all the rage in the travel industry these days with companies like Jetsetter and Kayak getting into the game, but Rue La La comes at it from a slightly different angle, offering stays at four-star hotels along with Gucci watches, Armani sunglasses, Stuart Weitzman sandals and Vix halter dresses.

Rue La La, newly part of public company GSI Commerce, began offering themed, 48-hour hotel sales last summer, and recently brought in travel industy veteran Marka Jenkins Waechter, formerly CEO of Metropolitan Travel, as general manager of Rue La La’s Experiences (hotels, cooking classes etc.) division. (Expedia acquired Metropolitan Travel in 2002.)

Like Jetsetter, but unlike Kayak, Rue La La serves as the merchant of record in hotel sales and a 5-member team sources merchant-model hotel deals from upscale properties.

Rue La La, headquartered in Boston, has about 200 employees and claims to have some 1.2 million members, about 75% of whom are women.

Here’s a peak from within the walled garden — you can’t use Google, Bing, Kayak or Mobissimo to access the private sales — of Rue La La’s “Luxury Under the Sun” sale for Destination Hotels and Resorts’ Miramonte Resort & Spa in Palm Springs, Calif.

Jenkins Waechter claims Rue La La approaches hotel private sales a bit differently than Kayak, for instance, in that Rue La La’s core competency is merchandising and not in great search technology.

Unlike online travel agencies, Rue La La markets hotels under themes rather than commoditizing travel inventory, Jenkins Waechter says, and the beginning of the experience, too, is different because Rue La La users may have come to the website initially to buy a bikini or some flips.

There’s an irony too in the value proposition that Rue La La presents to hotels. It uses the private sales approach so it can “discretely” move inventory, Jenkins Waechter says, yet Rue La La sees itself as being a marketing partner for hotels as it’s “telling a brand story.”

Jenkins Waechter says Rue La La plans on devoting considerable resources to travel offerings and is flexible enough to experiment with new models.

For example, she says, Rue La La may try a commission-based model for “supported sales,” where users would be able to talk to experts about the property or destination before the purchase.

The company’s private sales have not been limited to hotels. In addition to offering activities — or “experiences” in Rue La La lingo — for things like the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving, Rue La La recently ran a private sale for Windstar Cruises.