Agent hails success of expedition cruise podcast in ‘getting customers over the line’

The owner of luxury agency the Authentic Travel Company has credited launching a dedicated expedition cruise podcast with helping get more customers “over the line” to confirm their booking.

The podcast, called Authentic Expeditions and hosted by polar explorer Sue Stockdale, released its first episode last March and by December had claimed hundreds of monthly listeners.

Jane Middleton, managing director of Authentic Travel Company, told Travel Weekly the idea to start the podcast came from a conversation with her friend Stockdale last year, with the idea to “boost business” by sharing details of an offer at the end of every episode.

“After four episodes, we decided it was more about trying to educate clients,” she said.

“It is more of a tool to get clients to understand destinations and expose them to expedition cruising because they do not know what to expect.”

Guests have included polar explorers, expedition guides, nature photographers, glaciologists, bird experts, Clia’s Andy Harmer and expedition cruise line sales leads such as Ponant’s Anthony Daniels.

“The thing we found is some of the podcast episodes have got people over the line as you could talk until you are blue in the face as an agent about what to expect, but when you give somebody one of the guides or a photographer or someone else speaking about expedition, then it suddenly gets credibility and it clicks for people,” she said.

She added the podcast helped address “misconceptions” about expedition cruise, for instance around it being like a traditional cruise or too expensive.

Middleton said the podcast had now got to a stage where they were “getting good traction” registering a couple of hundred listeners every month before Christmas, with people tuning in from more than 23 countries.

She said she wanted the podcast to be “good fun” but also “address harder questions”, such as environmental impact and climate change.

Middleton herself has been on expeditions to the Galapagos with National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions, Svalbard with HX Expeditions, Greenland and Iceland with Quark Expeditions and the UK and France with Albatros Expeditions, which she said gives her insight into people’s perceptions of the sector.

She said the pair had decided to give the podcast another year, adding: “We will see what comes up and as long as people are enjoying it, we will keep going.

“The idea is not to take it into a massive podcast with loads of sponsorship, but to keep it nice, clean entertainment or education for people when they’re looking for something.”

Middleton said 25% to 30% of the agency’s sales were for expedition cruises last year, contributing to around 70% of sales for cruises.

Middleton said the podcast had made her consider shifting the agency’s strategy to be fully focused on expedition cruises.