Intrepid Travel Group has revealed sales through travel agents have risen by 30% during the last year as it officially launched its new family adventure brand to the trade.
The adventure group’s sales have increased 20% for its financial year ending September 31, 2014, but within this trade sales were up by 30%.
The trade currently accounts for around 40% of sales but Intrepid Group UK and Europe regional director Michael Edwards hopes this will reach 50% within the next two years.
“We are starting to see the benefits of working more closely with the trade. The trade is now core to our business strategy; we will equally target trade and consumers . We are increasing the number of fam trips and doing more trade events,” he said.
Edwards was speaking after announcing the Intrepid Group has dropped The Adventure Company – which it merged with in 2012 – and rebranded it as The Family Adventure Company. The Adventure Company stopped trading at the end of September and its product has been consolidated into The Family Adventure Company brand and into Intrepid.
Its website, familyadventurecompany.co.uk, has been revamped under the new brand name and the cut-off age for discounts for children travelling with their families has been increased from 12 to 15. The brand is offering an expanded range of 50 family friendly activity, wildlife, cultural and trekking trips worldwide for 2015.
“There is a market for this and it’s about making sure agents are aware of the brand,” he said. But he admitted: “It’s never going to be huge [the market] because the holidays are expensive and tend to appeal to ‘hardy’ families.”
Edwards, who started with the company a year ago, said the move was part of a consolidation across the operator’s brands, which sit in the PEAK Adventure Travel Group, a strategic venture with Tui Travel’s adventure businesses.
The consolidation has also recently seen Trailfinders become the general sales agent for its Peregrine brand for more mature adventure travellers, meaning it is no longer sold through other independent travel agents.
Edwards said Intrepid’s ‘comfort’ brand offered a similar product range for the rest of the trade. “We were finding agents were booking this and it made sense to sell that through the trade and give Peregrine a [separate] home; we were competing with ourselves,” he added.
The Intrepid Group’s Geckos Adventures brand now focuses on the 18-39 age group instead of catering for all ages.