Great Adventures: Exotic travel sites serve a growing online market
It’s hard enough booking a trip to Chicago, let alone a mountain-climbing expedition or a trek through a tropical jungle. People need help doing it.
So goes the thinking among a new breed of marketers that develop and book these and other trips online. And it’s a growing market; overall, the online travel industry is projected to reach $30 billion in sales by the end of 2001, up from $5 billion last year, according to Stamford, CT-based research firm Gartner Group.
Within this category lies the highly fragmented segment of adventure travel. Figures on the size of this market vary from as little as $58 million up to $98 million. But the consensus is that it’s mushrooming.
One leading player is San Francisco’s Adventureseek.com, which has positioned itself as a virtual source for consumers to find and purchase “active” and “experiential” travel, says marketing director Michael McColl. Visitors to the company’s Web site (www.adventureseek.com) can click on prompts such as “explore the world,” “find a trip,” “buy gear” and “share experiences.” All are designed to guide customers from early-stage dreaming to final trip preparations.
Adventureseek offers more than 10,000 vacations from over 100 travel “outfitters,” and receives a 10% commission for each trip booked through the site – the same as conventional travel agencies. Affiliated sites offering products like books and camping gear take smaller percentages, McColl notes.
Aiming at a broad demographic group of 25- to 54-year-olds, Adventureseek is testing incentive offers through small mailings to the house databases of MyPoints.com and at least one other Web site. It’s also placing direct response ads in magazines like Outside and National Geographic Explorer, as well as banner ads on sites of marketing partners like REI, Lonely Planet and Expedia.
Although it has not yet inaugurated any one-to-one marketing programs, Adventureseek plans to upgrade its customization capabilities – it will ask visitors to indicate travel experiences and preferences, and use this information to create targeted offers.
In December Adventureseek got a financial shot in the arm with a 10% equity stake from REI, a direct marketer of outdoor gear. (REI sells gear through the site by way of an affiliation arrangement.)
Another firm jumping on the bandwagon is Great Outdoor Recreation Pages (GORP), a Miami-based company that for five years has sold travel information via the Web. Late last year the firm acquired American Wilderness Experience, a travel wholesaler encompassing more than 300 tour operators across the country, says Evan Moser, GORP’s vice president of marketing.
Up to now, the site – which attracts more than 1 million hits per month – has drawn revenue primarily through affiliations with publishers and other business partners. In January, though, GORP (www.gorp.com) planned to launch an online travel-booking service that will allow customers to research and book trips using such criteria as cost, destination and desired activity. It will reach an affluent market – the firm’s customers, 60% of whom are men ages 25 to 54, have an average household income of $75,000 per year. They’re also Internet savvy, notes Moser.
At press time, the company was set to kick off an advertising effort for its new touring service involving both “online and offline advertising,” says Moser. It will also initiate several customer retention strategies and Web site hosting services for its business-to-business clients, including publishers and marketers of outdoor gear. And it plans to sell goods through its gorpgear.com Web site as well.
Taking a slightly different approach, ByeByeNow.com works directly with travel agents. According to Tom McDermott, ByeByeNow’s executive vice president, long-standing instability and consolidation in the travel agency business has helped make many agents receptive to his company’s way of doing business.
“Travelers need the human touch when making travel plans that are more complex than just booking plane tickets, renting cars and reserving hotel rooms,” he says. In November, the company acquired Cruise Holidays International, a travel agency franchiser with 204 stores in the United States and Canada. With that addition, the firm has a national network of 349 travel agents with which it has franchise arrangements. Collectively they pull in about $550 million in sales, says co-founder Alys Daly.
In addition to offering users the chance to book vacations in many areas of the world, ByeByeNow’s site directs consumers to the nearest travel agents.
The company’s strategy emphasizes customer relationship management and loyalty marketing through permission-based e-mail marketing. It has a travel club that awards points for travel purchases, plus a monthly online newsletter and free six-month magazine subscriptions. It’s also developing tools to help travel agents pursue customer-centric marketing.
The free subscription offers are derived from marketing partnership deals with American Express Publishing (Travel & Leisure, Travel & Leisure Golf) and Times Mirror, publisher of Golf and Ski magazines.
However, McDermott stresses, ByeByeNow has not created hyperlinks to, or made affiliation agreements with, these companies. “We want to build up our own brand first,” he says.
To promote the Web site, McDermott adds, ByeByeNow plans “a lot of advertising in magazines.”
Upscale Customers
Most of these adventure travel marketers are zeroing in on high-income prospects. Take the Unexplored Travel Network (www. unexplored.com), San Francisco, which in the past few months has been busy acquiring and negotiating partnerships with travel outfitters and other related companies. One key acquisition was Inntopia.com, which has an online network of vacation lodges and a reservation system. Unexplored also opened a London office late last year, says founder/CFO Frank Petito.
The company books vacations for consumers through the Web, and also supplies its marketing partners with the electronic means to book their own tours. At press time, fees for all these services were still being negotiated. The site reportedly will become fully operational this month. Unexplored is also planning a number of e-mail marketing, TV and direct response print ads, although its budget is small.
“We didn’t run any $5 million spots during the Super Bowl,” Petito quips. The company projects revenue in the “lower millions” of dollars.
Also trying to work the high end of the market is Bidwell Adventure Travel Planning, in Berkeley, CA. Bidwell is sending out its first postcard test – which includes an offer for a free consultation – to a list of 2,000 names.
Since 1996, the company has worked as a buying agent and consultant for an extremely small group of individuals and organizations interested in exotic vacations. President John Bidwell began the business as a sideline when he was an environmental official with the city of San Jose, CA.
If the postcard drop yields enough prospects, Bidwell plans to follow it up with larger mailings. The company’s site (www.bidwelladventures. com) offers to plan trips for customers or act as a consultant for individuals looking to book their own adventure vacations. The average sale is around $10,000.
Bidwell admits he’s turning to mail due to the massive competition from companies that advertise through direct response print and on the Web. (Despite seeing most travel sites as competitors, he concedes that he links to at least one.)
Conventional wisdom points to a bright future for the online adventure travel business. But, warns Bidwell, that’ll only be the case as long as the economy holds up.
