Social Clubs & Experiences Market 2026: Verified Benchmarks and Business Models

No one has sized the social clubs market. Here is what McKinsey, Soho House, Tripadvisor and the OECD data do and don't show.

SOCIAL CLUBS MARKET 2026REAL ESTATE & PROPTECH

LonelinessEconomy.com Research Desk

10/25/20265 min read

social club with professionals networking
social club with professionals networking

A flagship market intelligence briefing on the loneliness economy | Last updated: October 2026

Quick answer: No authoritative 2026 market size or CAGR exists for the combined “social clubs and experiences” category. The defensible approach is to size its parts separately: McKinsey’s $1.1–1.3 trillion destination-visitor experience spend, Soho House’s $418 million of FY2024 membership revenue, and Tripadvisor Experiences’ $924 million of 2025 revenue. These are adjacent benchmarks, not one market, and they must not be added together.

Editorial note on framing: “loneliness economy” is a thematic lens, not a measured industry. Social need, consumer demand, recurring revenue and investable returns are four separate things. The investment ideas here are analyst hypotheses for diligence, not forecasts or recommendations.

Executive View

Growth is visible but narrow. Soho House grew paying membership and membership revenue strongly in FY2024 yet recorded a $163.6 million net loss, its net loss in every year since inception. Tripadvisor’s Experiences segment grew revenue 10% in 2025 and reached an adjusted EBITDA margin near 10%. Neither company is a proxy for friendship-led clubs or hosted social events.

The investable question is retention, not discovery. Event attendance, satisfaction, repeat participation and sustained reduction in loneliness are different outcomes. The OECD’s July 2026 report on food-based connection programmes finds promising delivery mechanisms but says evidence on effectiveness remains limited.

2. Market Definition

“Social clubs and experiences” is an analytical category, not an official statistical classification. Each segment has its own revenue concept.

McKinsey’s research concerns travel experiences. Using it for social clubs requires judgment: it sizes the surrounding experience economy and shows that nearly half of bookings (47%) were still offline in 2023, with only 22% through online intermediaries.

4. Growth and CAGR Evidence

The calculations below are mine, using the formula CAGR = (ending value ÷ starting value)^(1 ÷ years) − 1, over two annual intervals. No like-for-like 2026–2030 forecast exists for the combined category. Any projection beyond these data should be labeled an analyst scenario with explicit assumptions.

FY2024 membership revenue was $418.026 million, up 17% from $356.605 million, driven by about 14,100 more adult paying members. Total revenue was $1.2 billion, of which membership was 35%, in-house spend 40% and other revenue 25%. The company reported net losses of $164 million, $130 million and $223 million in fiscal 2024, 2023 and 2022.

Takeaway: paid membership can expand while consolidated results stay negative. Frozen memberships also rose, from 7,512 to 10,113 in FY2024, so headline member counts need paired retention and utilization data. Soho House’s asset-light opening costs ($2–8 million against $10–20 million for other openings) are carried over from the earlier draft and not re-verified; reduced upfront cost can come with higher rents.

6. Experience Marketplaces: Tripadvisor

Tripadvisor’s Experiences segment (Viator plus Tripadvisor experiences) grew revenue 10% in 2025 on gross booking value of $4.7 billion, up 13%. Management said Experiences contributed nearly half of group revenue and about 30% of group profit. The 2023 and 2024 EBITDA figures are carried over from the earlier draft and not re-verified. Adjusted EBITDA is non-GAAP, and the segment describes marketplace economics, not venue-owning clubs or hosted dining.

McKinsey adds the operator side: operators typically achieve up to 60% margins after platform commission, labor is the largest cost, and 78% of 19 interviewed operators already take at least half of their bookings through platforms.

7. Demand: Loneliness and Participation

OECD research also notes that men and young people have emerged as newly vulnerable groups, that in-person socialising is declining, and that government funding, space and referral pathways often enable successful programmes. England and OECD figures use different questions and populations and should not be ranked against each other.

9. Investment Evidence

No consistent global funding series exists for paid social clubs, friendship-event businesses or the loneliness economy through October 2026, so no sector funding CAGR is presented. The deals below are carried over from the earlier draft, are not re-verified, and span different years and categories. Do not sum them. Startup ecosystem and regional revenue data for friendship-led clubs and curated social events were not sourced in this edition. They require primary data from PitchBook, Crunchbase or company filings.

10. Risks

•Boundary risk: adding overlapping spend pools produces an inflated TAM.

•Profitability risk: Soho House shows that membership growth does not guarantee consolidated profit.

•Retention risk: community products can lose value once members form friendships and no longer need the organizer.

•Affordability risk: people with the highest need may have the least ability to pay.

•Evidence risk: attendance is not proof of reduced loneliness, so outcome claims require evaluation.

•Safeguarding risk: events that bring strangers together need host training, venue standards and clear incident handling.

11. Opportunities and Unit-Economics Diligence

These are analyst hypotheses for commercial diligence, not forecasts.

•Recurring local participation: test repeat attendance without discounts and whether relationships persist.

•Organizer infrastructure: with 47% of experience bookings still offline in 2023, software could save organizer time, but only if it retains customers without owning demand.

•Capital-disciplined venues: assess total lease economics, not opening costs alone.

•Sponsored access: employers, insurers and governments may pay where consumers cannot; test who pays and what evidence renews the contract.

12. Strategic Recommendations

Operators: report paid retention and contribution margin by cohort, price for the cost of hosting and venues, and measure whether members make lasting connections.

Investors: underwrite cash generation and retention, not membership counts or RSVPs, and separate need from willingness to pay.

Platforms: treat curation and trust as the product, since McKinsey finds discovery and booking friction is a core pain point.

Policymakers and funders: pair funding with evaluation so programmes can show effects on connection and not only attendance.

13. Future Trends


• 2026 and beyond: expect more experience marketplaces to move into hosted, recurring formats, and more scrutiny of outcome claims. This is an analyst expectation, not a sourced forecast.

•Employer and public funding: expect more sponsored participation where social-connection outcomes can be measured. This is also an analyst expectation.

14. Metrics That Matter

An investor-grade dashboard should report:

•Paid member retention and churn by cohort.

•Contribution margin per member and per event.

•Repeat attendance without discounts.

•Refund and no-show rates.

•Net revenue versus gross booking value.

•Lease-adjusted cash generation for venue operators.

•Outcome measures for sponsored programmes.

15. Bottom Line

The social clubs and experiences market is real in its parts and unmeasured as a whole. The strongest evidence is for paid memberships and experience marketplaces, and neither proves a profitable, scalable business for friendship-led clubs. The winners will be priced on retention and contribution margin, not on loneliness statistics.

Methodology and Key Caveats

Verified in this edition: McKinsey’s September 2024 experiences article; the OECD July 2026 food-connection report; Soho House’s FY2024 10-K and results release (member counts, membership revenue, net loss); Tripadvisor’s 2025 Experiences revenue and gross booking value; and the England Community and Engagement Survey 2025/26. Carried over from the earlier draft and not re-verified: the OECD 2025 prevalence and contact figures, Statista music-ticket values, Tripadvisor 2023–2024 EBITDA, Soho House opening-cost ranges and the Klook and SevenRooms transactions. The earlier draft says the England report was updated on October 22, 2026; I found it published in August 2026 and could not confirm a later update. The 14% growth rate is an older tourism expert estimate. Startup, regional revenue and World Bank, Deloitte and PitchBook data were not sourced.

Sources

Market Sizing: McKinsey and Skift, The evolving role of experiences in travel (September 2024); Statista (April 2026 music-ticket GMV)

Company Filings: Soho House & Co Inc. FY2024 Form 10-K and results release; Tripadvisor FY2025 Form 10-K and results release

Loneliness and Participation: OECD, Social Connections and Loneliness in OECD Countries (2025); OECD, Promoting Social Connectedness Through Food (July 2026); UK Government, Community and Engagement Survey 2025/26

Investment Data: Crunchbase News (Klook rounds; H1 2025 travel funding review)