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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fear and Greed Q and A where we

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Speaker 1: ask and answer questions about business, investing, economics, politics and more.

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Speaker 1: I'm Sean Almer. Australians are traveling again. The travel industry

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Speaker 1: has bounced back after COVID and in some cases demand

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Speaker 1: is stronger than ever. I'm talking today to James Thornton,

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Speaker 1: the CEO of Intrepid Travel. In Trepid has just recorded

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Speaker 1: its biggest trading month in its thirty six year history.

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Speaker 1: He joins me in the studio, James, Welcome to Fear

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Speaker 1: and Greed Q and A grade too.

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Speaker 2: Rely, Sean, your.

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Speaker 1: Best trading month in thirty six times twelve. However, me,

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Speaker 1: that is a lot.

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Speaker 3: Why why Australians are desperate to geta and travel At

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Speaker 3: the moment, Sean, it seems more and more they want

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Speaker 3: experiences and they want to buy from and increasingly workforce

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Speaker 3: companies that have true sustainability credentials.

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Speaker 2: And Trebor's got a great long thirty six year history

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Speaker 2: of both. So demand for travel is back and people

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Speaker 2: are getting out there and seeing the world again.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so it's about seeing the world again than domestic.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, very much so. Domestic obviously came out of the

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Speaker 2: pandemic and boomed pretty quickly. In fact, still fifty percent

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Speaker 2: of Australian travelers do travel domestically, but that demand for

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Speaker 2: international travel is definitely back. People are heading to all

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Speaker 2: kinds of far flung wonderful places. The Vietnams, the Japans,

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Speaker 2: the Indias, the Perus.

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Speaker 1: Are they the popular places that you've just mentioned there.

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Speaker 2: VI and RM Morocco number one and number two for

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Speaker 2: Australian travelers with intrepid absolutely.

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Speaker 1: Right out and who's traveling and in one of the

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Speaker 1: age groups.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so the key age groups are really threefold. So

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Speaker 2: first up of university educated single female in her mid

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Speaker 2: forties who has a professional job but limited free time

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Speaker 2: to get out and see the world in the safety.

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Speaker 2: And the second one is the baby boomer fifty sixties,

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Speaker 2: kids have left home, mortgages paid off, bit more free time,

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Speaker 2: don't want to get on the big coach tour, want

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Speaker 2: to have an immersive experience again, bit of structure in

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Speaker 2: that group environment. And the third one is the first

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Speaker 2: time traveler. Then maybe home ownership is a little bit

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Speaker 2: out of reach. They want to get out, have a

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Speaker 2: great experience. They're really value those kind of local, immersive

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Speaker 2: experiences and want to share them with their friends on

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Speaker 2: social media. So they are the three types of groups

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Speaker 2: that they're traveling.

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Speaker 1: I get the young ones, I get the older ones,

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Speaker 1: the forty something year old females. Is that a new category?

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Speaker 2: There always been the main category for an intrepid traveler,

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Speaker 2: But really it's the two ends of the spectrum that

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Speaker 2: have grown perhaps more quickly than ever before, particularly the

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Speaker 2: slightly older clientele. That's where we're seeing the fastest amount

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Speaker 2: of growth right now.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so Intrepid itself, give me that story. I mean

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Speaker 1: off here, I was just saying, you know, twenty years ago,

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Speaker 1: I used to watch Intrepid because it always amazed me

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Speaker 1: that you had a role in you know, twenty years on,

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Speaker 1: thirty six years on, your actually main player in the

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Speaker 1: Australian industry. So just give me the rundown very quickly.

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Speaker 2: Super quick. Thirty six years ago, two university friends from

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Speaker 2: Melbourne UNI traveling through Africa together on a converted tip

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Speaker 2: har truck and realized that there was a potential style

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Speaker 2: of travel where you didn't travel on the organized coach tour,

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Speaker 2: but equally you didn't travel using the lonely planet on

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Speaker 2: rough guide and whilst there a way you could put

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Speaker 2: the two together, so the organized structure of the group

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Speaker 2: touring environment, but also the freedom and flexibility around using

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Speaker 2: a local guidebook and effectively that's how they started. One

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Speaker 2: of them went to Thailand researched the first itinery. One

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Speaker 2: of them stayed in Melbourne on his kitchen table and

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Speaker 2: did sales and marketing and trying to put it at

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Speaker 2: a value based proposition, about fifty dollars a day. In

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Speaker 2: their first year of operation, they carried a whopping forty

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Speaker 2: seven people to Thailand. We think that was their family

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Speaker 2: and friends. Since then, fortune we've grown a bit, obviously

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Speaker 2: geographical dispersion, different types of products, to the point where

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Speaker 2: this year in Trappid will carry more than three hundred

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Speaker 2: thousand customers to over one hundred and fourteen countries all

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Speaker 2: around the world.

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Speaker 1: Wow. In mass those three hundred thousand are Australian or no.

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Speaker 2: So about forty five percent of Australians are still our

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Speaker 2: largest part of the market, but were actually fastest growing

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Speaker 2: in the Northern Hemisphere now in the UK and also

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Speaker 2: in the United States. So in tributes to become a

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Speaker 2: real global name now and I think it's real testament

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Speaker 2: to the fact that you've got an Australian's success story

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Speaker 2: that has kind of gone global.

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Speaker 1: So how do you cut through the noise? So I

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Speaker 1: would get an I kind of as Michael, my co host,

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Speaker 1: fear and greed complaints all the time. I tend to

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Speaker 1: travel a lot and I am loyal to be honest

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Speaker 1: to my travel partners. How do you cut through the

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Speaker 1: noise when there's four or five groups that come to me,

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Speaker 1: you being one of them all the time, and I

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Speaker 1: am price conscious but not ultra price conscious, how do

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Speaker 1: you kind of hit your mark?

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Speaker 2: I think we want to provide a value based proposition

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Speaker 2: where people going to have an amazing experience, But we're

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Speaker 2: also trying to get awareness for our SOLA travel out there.

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Speaker 2: People still to this day don't quite understand what does

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Speaker 2: it mean to go on a small group, what does

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Speaker 2: it mean to have an immersive experience? So we're trying

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Speaker 2: to do a little bit of education. We're trying to

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Speaker 2: get the brand out there with a bit more out

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Speaker 2: of home advertising, a little bit of sports sponsorship that

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Speaker 2: we're starting to move into now, and then when we

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Speaker 2: get people into the funnel, we get the awareness there

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Speaker 2: we then work very hard to make sure that we

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Speaker 2: convert them. We're also starting to expand our niche a

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Speaker 2: little bit into investments into accommodation. Intrepid recently brought wild

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Speaker 2: Bush Luxury, which has Akaburu and Bamaru Plains, Northern Territory,

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Speaker 2: Riah Island Walk. We've got the Dangery Eco Lodge, So

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Speaker 2: really starting to expand that kind of breadth of product

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Speaker 2: a bit to make it a little bit more mainstream

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Speaker 2: in people's awareness.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of like the EE anti EBNV theory here.

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Speaker 1: Airbnb have gone from a combination to experiences and in

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Speaker 1: a sense you're as much an experienced travel company. Is

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Speaker 1: the future about that sort of integration. I suppose it's

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Speaker 1: horizontal integration across the industry.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's some vertical integration that will go on,

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Speaker 2: But ultimately, at the moment our form of experiences, it's

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Speaker 2: just about getting people aware that this type of immersive,

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Speaker 2: small group experience is out there, that you don't have

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Speaker 2: to travel on a big coach tour. You don't still

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Speaker 2: have to do it independently. So many ways, it's still

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Speaker 2: the same message from thirty six years ago. You can

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Speaker 2: go and have a great value experience. Travel through a destination,

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Speaker 2: try the food, meet the people, travel with some like

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Speaker 2: minded travelers and have a wonderful experience over seven or

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Speaker 2: ten days. And that's alsomly what we're trying to do.

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Speaker 1: How many times do you travel yourself?

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Speaker 2: I spent about seventy percent of the year away from

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Speaker 2: sunny Melbourne, so a lot of time on planes. It's

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Speaker 2: probably two hundred days a year, so very lucky, but

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Speaker 2: also looking forward to a nice Christmas break.

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Speaker 1: Okay, final question, but it's an important one. What's a

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Speaker 1: good deal in travel? Because I can go and get

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Speaker 1: a good deal. The headline price is good, but then

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Speaker 1: of course when you're traveling matters, and then there's always

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Speaker 1: extras in terms of flights and baggage and all that

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Speaker 1: sort of priority. There seems to be a lot of extras.

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Speaker 1: How do I judge when it's a good deal.

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Speaker 2: I think it's about balancing the value based proposition with

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Speaker 2: also the experience you're going to get. You know, we

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Speaker 2: know when you're traveling in Europe, for example, that you

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Speaker 2: can go and buy your Ryan Air flight for forty dollars,

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Speaker 2: but you've got to pay for your bag you've got

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Speaker 2: to pay for your seat, You've sometimes got to pay

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Speaker 2: for your boarding pass, heaven forbid. So I think it's

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Speaker 2: always about making sure that as customers we check out

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Speaker 2: what those additional extras are and sometimes where we might

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Speaker 2: see a product that's slightly more expensive, often it can

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Speaker 2: be better value and better experience. So I always say,

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Speaker 2: in travel, you tend to get what you pay for,

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Speaker 2: So yeah, look out for those hidden extras that are there.

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Speaker 1: Can you actually work those out? Because I totally I

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Speaker 1: mean I was in Europe during the year I used

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Speaker 1: Ryan Air, but Ryan Air was fantastic so long as

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Speaker 1: you didn't have any luggage, so long as you could

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Speaker 1: get an exit row seat, because suddenly you got somewhere

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Speaker 1: to put you. You've got priority boarding and all this

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Speaker 1: sort of stuff. But otherwise it was a fight, you know,

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Speaker 1: and like it wasn't an enjoyable experience at all. How

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Speaker 1: do you work all that stuff out?

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Speaker 2: Or two ways, One you've got to be very organized,

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Speaker 2: or two you've got to speak to a travel professional.

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Speaker 2: And still here in Australia there are amazing travel professionals

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Speaker 2: who are there and have great responsibilities to be able

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Speaker 2: to provide you with all the solutions to take the

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Speaker 2: hustle out of it for you. So go and see

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Speaker 2: a travel professional and I'm sure they'll take care of you.

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Speaker 1: Where's your next trip to.

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Speaker 2: My next trip is going to be the Mornington Peninsula

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Speaker 2: on which might sound a little bit boring for listeners,

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Speaker 2: but I just want to stay home for a little

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Speaker 2: bit of time over summer, and then in March, very excitingly,

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Speaker 2: I'm heading to Central Asia to as Bekistan. We're Intrepid

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Speaker 2: is opening our thirty second office. Lots of demand to

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Speaker 2: Central Asia right now to go and see the stance.

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Speaker 1: Fantastic, James, thank you for talking to Fear and Greed.

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Speaker 2: Great to be with you, Sean.

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Speaker 1: That was James Thornton, CEO of Intrepid Travel. I'm Sean

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Speaker 1: Almer and this is Fear and Greed Q and a