Agents have reported customers are increasingly asking about sustainable travel, according to adventure operator Explore’s boss.
Michael Edwards praised agents for how they retained knowledge about multiple operators and different types of travel.
Speaking during a Travel Weekly webcast, he said: “The feedback we get from agents is they are getting asked more and more about sustainable styles of travel.
“Knowledge is power. We’ll work closely with our agents to understand if [something] is useful to them, how they talk about a product and help with any difficult questions they have.”
Edwards, who previously worked for Intrepid Group and G Adventures, oversaw each of Explore’s 515 trips being categorised in terms of the amount of carbon they produce earlier this month.
He revealed the process took his team around 400 hours to complete.
Edwards said he was sure that agents would get asked by customers why they should take a high carbon trip with Explore.
Explore’s BDM team had been tasked with explaining Explore’s carbon emissions calculations to the trade, Edwards added.
On Explore’s customers, he commented: “We have a very loyal customer base who are very interactive and engaged with us.
“I’ve never worked in a job where I get so many emails from customers, it’s a lovely thing. The feedback has been good.”
During the pandemic, Explore continued to “innovate and pioneer product”, Edwards added. “We developed a lot of new product [and] we didn’t really downsize our teams at all,” he said, before pointing out how Explore launched trips to Saudi Arabia during the pandemic.
“We’re kind of one of the few operators of our size pioneering in Saudi Arabia,” he explained.
He pledged to continue supporting the trade. “We’ve signed up some good new partnerships in the last six months – that’s very much part of our plans,” said Edwards.
“You’ll see a bit more of a dynamic, energised Explore that is just really customer focused and wanting to do good things in the market.”