Why more pet owners are seeking out animal-friendly hotels in their travels: Wag CEO

Wag CEO Garrett Smallwood sits down with Yahoo Finance Live to talk about the rise in pet boarding costs as families try to plan summer vacations, the trend of pet-friendly hotels, and the company's SPAC deal.

Video transcript

- Our next guest joins us with some insights into the business of pet-friendly travel. Wag CEO Garrett Smallwood. Welcome to the show. Good to have you on. So as we saw there--

GARRETT SMALLWOOD: Great to be here.

- Great to have you. So as we know, one in five American households adopted a pet during COVID. But, obviously, we're seeing people now starting to travel. What are some of the best ways to make a strong travel plan if you have a pet?

GARRETT SMALLWOOD: Isn't it crazy? So one in five households in the US adopted a pet during the pandemic. So just to frame that. It's millions of new pet parents who are going out for the first time in years and exploring the US, international, wherever they might be going. It's a crazy time. We recently surveyed pet parents nationwide to understand the obstacles they would face.

We polled more than 1,000 pet parents and found that 81% of frequent travelers are seeking out pet-friendly destinations, things that make their life easier traveling with their pets. We recently also inked a deal with Kimpton, which we're thrilled about, across their 65-plus locations, which allows their travelers the benefits of Wag with Wag Premium and enables them to be able to book on-demand dog walks, drop ins, et cetera to the Wag platform. But in general, it's time to plan.

- Are you finding that a lot of these companies are receptive to more pet-friendly aspects? Obviously, demand isn't a problem. They already have people who want to come and stay in these hotels. Is there a challenge in trying to talk them into making them pet friendly?

GARRETT SMALLWOOD: I don't think so. I mean, certainly not for us. Anybody that's approaching Wag is well aware of the Wag platform. Again, we're one of the largest technology platforms in the US, offering things like dog walking, pet sitting, boarding, training, expert pet advice across 5,200 cities in all 50 states. So people generally are aware of Wag and the benefits of partnering with a platform like ours. And I generally think most brands look at pets as an unlock. They're trying to capture the pet parents and the pets themselves. It's a big audience. It's a growing audience. And it's an audience with a lot of resilience.

- And also, a lot of people still returning to in-person work as well. In terms of some of the pay or the price rises that you're seeing, not just because of inflation, but because of the lack of supply there, what are you seeing in terms of costs for boarding for dog walkers, for some of these pet sitters?

GARRETT SMALLWOOD: Yeah. It's fascinating, isn't it? I think every industry is seeing their own rapid change. I think just taking a step back, there are more than 400,000 pet caregivers-- that's 400-- building their business on Wag. That's people across the US offering dog walks, sitting, boarding, training, you name it. And it's the best gig in America I think.

Would you rather be delivering Chinese food at 6:00 at night in Soho or walking a goldendoodle in LA at 2:00 on a Tuesday? It is a phenomenal gig. So we generally have been very fortunate that the gig part of the economy is very engaged. It's very resilient. They want to participate. And, frankly, they love pets.

- And we know that you're headed towards this $350 million SPAC deal. Tell us more about that and sort of the run up to it. What are your expectations there?

GARRETT SMALLWOOD: Yeah. Absolutely. So we're really excited to be partnering with CHW Acquisition Corp in a SPAC. And we plan to be public actually this quarter. It's a very fun and exciting time for the business, as I'm sure you can imagine. There are lots of tailwinds. We announced our Q1 results. And we grew more than 270% year on year. So there's just tremendous tailwinds, tremendous growth in the space. We think we're really just getting started. And it's a great time for pet parents and pet caregivers to be building their businesses.

- And, obviously, as companies do decide to go public, there can be added scrutiny. And we know that caring for other people's pets is an inherently risky business. There have been some concerns raised over the trust and safety processes at Wag from some former employees about perhaps lost pets or people not responding to things like injuries, lost pets. How would you like to address this?

GARRETT SMALLWOOD: Yeah. I mean, look, this is a large platform. It's a technology platform operating across the entire US. And, unfortunately, tragedies are going to happen. It's our responsibility to handle those tragedies with the utmost sincerity, professionalism, and sense of urgency. That's what I brought to the role two years ago when I took over as CEO. It's something ingrained in the DNA of the business, is taking care of the community. And it's something we wake up every single day to do. We know our job is the platform, it's the community, and it's to deliver a consistently amazing experience for everyone.