When you’re taking over an entire yacht, cruise ship, or hotel, choosing where you stay isn’t a minor detail.
For Luxury Lifestyle Vacations, better known as LLV Club, giving guests the ability to see exactly what’s available and choose their own room or cabin is part of delivering the experience itself.
Founded in 1997 by Jose Aguirre and his wife, LLV today runs six to eight programs a year, ranging from intimate experiences for around 15 couples through to programs for as many as 300 couples. Their experiences include ocean cruises, river cruises, hotel takeovers and more.
“It’s experiences. It’s not just a trip.”
Jose Aguirre, Founder of LLV Club
For a business built around highly distinctive experiences and a loyal community of repeat travelers, LLV wanted the booking experience to give guests the same sense of choice and confidence.
That’s where visual room selection for group travel with YouLi comes in.
When the exact room matters
Room allocation can be complicated for any group travel operator.
For LLV, there’s another layer: their guests genuinely care where they stay.
On a ship, some travelers want to be at the back, others midship and others at the front. On LLV’s longer voyages, there can be particularly strong demand for the larger suites.
The same is true on land.
For a hotel takeover, location could mean being close to the pool, spa or heart of the event. A marina-facing room may command a different price from an otherwise similar room.
“The view matters.”
Jose Aguirre, Founder of LLV Club
Rather than asking travelers to select a broad category and find out their exact room later, LLV gives them the opportunity to make that choice themselves.
Letting travelers see exactly what they’re booking
LLV offered visual cabin selection before moving the process fully into YouLi. The difference now is that room selection happens within the same booking experience.
“Everything is in one place, so we don’t need the suppliers to talk to each other, and so the less the better.”
Jose Aguirre, Founder of LLV Club
Guests can open the visual map and immediately see which rooms or cabins are still available.
They can select a specific option and see details including its category, size, price and inclusions. LLV complements the map with imagery and descriptions so travelers can understand not only what they’re paying for, but where they’ll be.
“You click and you see what’s available, what’s not, and it pops the description of what exactly [you’re] getting, the type of cabin, the size, the price, and the contents inside.”
Jose Aguirre, Founder of LLV Club
For a premium booking, that transparency matters.
A traveler comparing a cabin with a window to one with a balcony can understand why one commands a higher price rather than simply choosing from an abstract list of room categories.
Taking visual room selection from ships to an entire hotel
LLV has used YouLi deck plans for its cruises and yachts for some time. Recently, the team took the concept a step further.
For a hotel takeover in the south of France, LLV worked with YouLi to create its first visual hotel room map.
The property has 122 apartments, ranging from studios to three-bedroom suites. Previously, LLV would allow travelers to select a room category and then assign individual rooms later. With the rooming map, travelers can explore the property visually and select their specific apartment.
That distinction matters at this particular property.
Some rooms are close to the rooftop, pool, restaurant and heart of the event. Others offer marina views. Even rooms of a similar size can have different pricing based on their position and outlook.
The map makes those differences visible before the traveler books.
Because LLV expects to return to the property regularly, the map can then be reused for future departures.
“It’s perfect for us and I know we are going to use it several years to come.”
Jose Aguirre, Founder of LLV Club
Giving travelers control instead of managing allocations behind the scenes
There are different approaches to room allocation in group travel.
Some operators keep control of exact room assignments so their team can move travelers around later.
LLV takes the opposite approach.
“What we like is people decide, they pick their own cabin… They got it. And for us, it’s better that way.”
Jose Aguirre, Founder of LLV Club
It’s particularly valuable for LLV because many travelers are repeat guests who know one another.
Guests booking larger suites often entertain friends, hosting cocktails or brunches. Knowing their exact cabin in advance means they can tell friends where they’ll be, while groups of friends can intentionally choose cabins on the same deck or close to one another.
Room selection therefore becomes more than simply managing inventory.
It becomes part of how travelers imagine and plan the experience before they arrive.
24/7 booking without the back-and-forth
There’s also a practical advantage for the LLV team.
Without real-time room selection, selling specific cabins can easily turn into an email exchange:
“Is 511 available?”
“What about 513?”
“Which one is closer to the pool?”
“Does this one have a balcony?”
Instead, travelers can see the available choices and make their decision themselves.
“People can access the website 24/7… no matter if you’re in Australia or in Spain or in the States, it’s always there available. So they don’t need to have any human right there.”
Jose Aguirre, Founder of LLV Club
For an international audience booking across multiple time zones, self-service matters.
The traveler gets an immediate answer without LLV needing someone on the other side of an inbox checking availability.
Room selection without the rooming-list admin
The efficiency continues after booking.
Because travelers select the actual room or cabin during the booking process, LLV doesn’t need to take a list of reservations and manually allocate everyone afterward.
The allocation has already happened.
“We just pull the reports.”
Jose Aguirre, Founder of LLV Club
The resulting data can include the room number, category, traveler and companion information, as well as payment information. LLV can then transfer the required data into the format requested by each cruise line.
It can also help with embarkation. LLV can prepare luggage tags with cabin information already established, making it clearer for guests where they’re going when they arrive.
Seeing demand as it happens
Visual inventory also helps the LLV team understand what is selling and what still needs attention.
Their guests have clear preferences.
LLV often sees its larger suites sell quickly, while more affordable cabins can take longer to move.
With room selection and booking information together, the team can identify categories that have sold out and those that may need additional sales attention.
For travelers, the map answers:
“Where do I want to be?”
For LLV, it helps answer:
“What’s selling and what do we still need to sell?”
Creating confidence from day one
Ultimately, the value of visual room selection for LLV comes down to giving travelers greater certainty about the experience they’re buying.
“Since day one, [you know] what you’re getting into… the location and where you are. And again, you can plan in advance.”
Jose Aguirre, Founder of LLV Club
For LLV’s community of travelers, that visibility makes it easier to choose, plan with friends, visualize their experience and arrive knowing what to expect.
For LLV, it means less room-allocation admin, fewer booking questions and clearer inventory management.
“For us and for our clients, that’s the best way to do it.”
Jose Aguirre, Founder of LLV Club
Could visual room selection work for your trips?
If you’re managing a cruise, yacht, hotel takeover, resort or another group experience where which room a traveler chooses matters as much as the room category, YouLi can bring visual room selection directly into your booking flow.
Travelers can see availability, understand their options and select the room that works for them, while your team keeps the booking, allocation and traveler information together.
