Fresh off launching its new ‘Short Breaks’ range with 4–6-day adventures for travellers seeking to get away for shorter periods of time, Intrepid Travel CEO James Thornton sat down with Travel Courier to talk trends, Canadian bookings and what travel advisors should know.
ANN RUPPENSTEIN
In order to meet the demands of travellers who are seeking to get away for shorter periods of time, Intrepid Travel has unveiled a new Short Breaks range, featuring 4–6-day getaways.
“We’re increasingly seeing a movement that people are taking more and more trips, but more and more shorter trips. If our average trip is 10-and-a-half days, we’re not catering to people who are travelling on those kinds of shorter duration trips,” Intrepid Travel CEO James Thornton told Travel Courier. “So for us, it’s about introducing a new customer to Intrepid, but also providing existing customers with alternative trip options because we know that Intrepid travellers might do multiple trips. There’s that desire to get away but I just don’t have 10 days to do it. We’re super excited about the launch.”
With 10 new itineraries across Latin America and Europe, and 45 refreshed trips worldwide, the new Short Breaks range features 82 trips, including 27 Independent Short Breaks, which are designed for travellers who prefer a self-guided experience — organized by Intrepid but without a local leader. The existing trips even include shorter two-and three-day trips.
“It’s the same kind of immersive, experiential, sustainability-driven product that people will hopefully know and love Intrepid for across our traditional range, but just being able to do that in 4-6 day itineraries,” Thornton noted. “We’ve got a whole range of trips all over the world in that shorter duration so they can get out and have amazing quick experiences in the time-poor world that we live in.”
“There’s so much beauty in the world and there are so many places where people are desperate to welcome travellers. As a tour operator that goes to 114 countries and has 30 offices around the world, we can highlight some really amazing experiences to people that are lesser known.”
–James Thornton, CEO, Intrepid Travel
Hannah Choat, PR Manager, North America for Intrepid said these new itineraries were designed with Canadian travellers in mind. While Australia, the UK and much of Europe offer upwards of 20 days of annual leave, North American travellers typically receive only around half of that. Intrepid Short Breaks are all less than a week in duration, with many departures scheduled around weekends and public holidays to help travellers make the most of limited annual leave.
“I think it’s really exciting for Canadians and Americans because the departure dates are really strategically placed around the long weekend calendar for next year so you can extend your vacation around like Labour Day,” Choat added.
Canadian market outpacing all other markets
Notably, Thornton said that the Canadian market is outpacing other regions overall with sales up 32% this year.
“We’re having some really excellent success in the market. Not many of our other markets are growing at 32% – in fact none of our markets are growing at 32% – so Canada is the fastest growing market globally right now,” he said. “It’s definitely beating colleagues south of the border right now where growth is softer. The growth is enabling us to invest more resources into the market.”
Another interesting development in the Canadian market is how strong the domestic Intrepid product range is performing.
“Canadians want to travel domestically in Canada. Our domestic travel range in Canada has kind of tripled. It’s growing incredibly well, we’re seeing Canadians heading out to Nova Scotia and having more intimate local experiences for those who don’t want to travel overseas at the moment,” he said.
While Intrepid used to manage its North America operations as a whole, it now has two dedicated teams focusing on the Canadian and the American market respectively.
“I think the hybrid approach just wasn’t right because Canada is very different from the United States and it was limiting our growth opportunities,” he said. “I think having a Canadian team run by Canadians, focused on Canadians, is a key reason why we’re performing well.”
Globally, Intrepid’s growth rate is at 15%, something Thornton said is impressive for a 36-year-old company.
Beyond domestic travel, Thornton said that Morocco is resonating really well with Canadian travellers this year. Intrepid is also seeing strong growth across Central and South America.
“Galapagos is performing very well for us on our two ships down there and then for our West Coast Canadians, we’re seeing Japan be very strong,” he added.
Spreading tourism to lesser known destinations with the Not Hot List
Coming out of the pandemic, Intrepid launched its first Not Hot List, the antithesis of a typical what’s hot travel list.
“It was always a counter to the traditional top 10 list of where everyone was going. Certainly at the moment at Intrepid, we feel like 95% of travellers are going to 5% of the world’s places and are really missing out on all these incredible places where people can benefit from tourism,” he said. “We’re seeing headlines over the summer of crowded, hot, expensive, but there’s so much beauty in the world and there are so many places where people are desperate to welcome travellers. As a tour operator that goes to 114 countries and has 30 offices around the world, we can highlight some really amazing experiences to people that are lesser known.”
With a Croatian wife, Thornton said he’s biased and has put Vis Island in Croatia at the top of the list of Not Hot places he wants to visit.
“I might want to move to Vis secretly. That’s kind of my secret ambition. Croatia gets lots of headlines, particularly Dubrovnik, in terms of everyone travelling there and it being super busy, but if you go just one island over to Lopud, it’s almost like time got left behind,” Thornton said. “So Vis is kind of like the furthest away, it was a military base in the 1980s under Tito, so you weren’t even allowed to go there as a Croatian. There’s very little accommodation and it’s pretty amazing, you get to see the submarine bunkers where they used to hide the submarines, and you can do some amazing swimming. There’s really good agro-tourism, you can have some great local wines, the food is incredible, my favourite food is that salty fish. So Vis, for me, is the No. 1 place on the list that I want to get to.”
One of the new Short Breaks options, which overlaps with the Not Hot List, is Hiking in Mexico: Oaxaca’s Indigenous Highlands, in the Sierra Norte Mountains, a new destination for Intrepid.
“It’s been almost impossible to access this area – there’s a new road that’s been built. It’s a self-governing community that runs all of the businesses there. The trip is basically hiking between these local communities and staying with them. You get to do this really cool experience in a place like Mexico that Canadians love, but it’s very different from Mexico City or Tulum,” Choat said.
Meanwhile, she said that another interesting destination on the Not Hot List is Sierra Leone, which is just starting their 10-year tourism strategy. Tiwai Island, Sierra Leone is on the Not Hot List.
“Being at the start of developing tourism with them is also very interesting,” she added.
Agents at the heart of Intrepid
When asked about the importance of the travel trade, Thornton was quick to respond, “They’re hugely important. In Canada about half our business comes through travel advisors. The original history of our company back in 1989 was our two co-founders going out and selling our product with travel agents in Australia and that’s how Intrepid first got its break… The first Intrepid trips in 1989 to Thailand were all booked through travel agents so our growth has always been very reliant on travel agents around the world.”
Thornton said Intrepid will continue working with travel advisors to expand awareness of the brand and their sustainable way of travelling.
