R. Crusoe Travels Off the Beaten Path
Want a royal tour of the Imperial Cities of Eastern Europe (Prague, Vienna and Budapest)? Or do you want to fulfill a Dream of Indochine (Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia)? Or do you just want to be the first on your block to see Libya (with Tunisia thrown in for good measure)?
Then R.Crusoe & Son has a tour for you.
R.Crusoe offers its customers some four-dozen possible itineraries for trips that include experiences beyond the more common famous building/famous collection package tour. An R.Crusoe tour is more likely to include a visit to an archeological dig than the archeology wing of a museum. Private dinners with local citizens, sampling regional food and wine, are routine. As for tangible souvenirs, it’s at the shops and workshops of local craftspeople, not the local tourist trap t-shirt stand.
“We target the five percent club,” explains David Weber, the founder and managing director or R.Crusoe, alluding to people in the top economic bracket. “They want more than just seeing museums and churches. They want to know what the local people are like, what the political and economic climate is.”
To reach that narrow, but affluent, niche, Weber uses direct mail, dedicating approximately 90% of his marketing dollars to the effort. He adds that 85% of his marketing goes directly to names selected from some 30 or 40 lists.
The Chicago-based company does not do any direct response advertising online. Weber regards the Web site, http://www.rcrusoe.com, as a way for prospects to access information about the company. E-mail is used to update the mailing list or keep customers up-to-date.
While Weber would not disclose the number of catalogs he mails annually or the response rate, he would say the average trip cost more than $6,500. “We’re not a cheap date.”
Weber plans to continue to expand his list of prospects and customers through more direct mail efforts, but adds that almost one-third of his new customers each year are actually people he hasn’t mailed to. They are the friends and relatives of people who have received the catalogs or taken one of the tours. Repeat customers account for more than another 30%.
Travelers can select from three categories of pre-planned trips: small, select journeys (18 or fewer participants, and some can be booked individually); strictly private journeys — all participants have decided to travel together, such as a family; and private air travel. Customized private and group tours can also be arranged.
In addition to the tours, R.Crusoe also runs travel programs for such cultural organizations as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the International Food and Wine Society, and the World Press Organization.
Weber was previously CFO of Abercrombie & Kent, a travel company. When he started his own business, Weber decided to target a niche no one else seemed to be pursuing. He put Larry Nolan, best known for being among the first tour operators in China and Russia, and Don Staley, the copywriter behind J.Peterman, on his advisory board.
Although Weber describes Staley’s contributions as “initial imaging and layout,” aficionados will spot echoes of his legendary whimsy throughout the copy. For example, the catalog illustrates what small, select journeys mean by saying, “Only you and your lover or only you and your seven elderly aunts with the waterfront house on Nantucket.”
