Intrepid FIT to go global

INTREPID Travel executives will meet next week in Cambodia to discuss how the adventure firm can expand its product range further into the fully independent traveller (FIT) market globally.

The independent adventure travel specialist is best known for its group touring product across brands which include Intrepid, Peregrine Adventures & Geckos, but dabbles in the FIT space, with around 10% of bookings coming from non-group sales.

“The word adventure gets used a lot, so we decided that the businesses we are in is sustainable experience rich travel (SERT),” ceo James Thornton told Travel Daily yesterday.

“But traditionally Intrepid has always played in the group side of SERT, and that’s great, and we’ve grown hugely in the space over the past 30 years.

“But with the advent of the internet and the fact that people are more informed and educated than ever before, and the reality that airfares are cheaper than ever, the ability for people to take more holidays and do more things and want to travel in different ways is one we need to adapt to,” Thornton said.

He said that after the launch of Urban Adventures a few years ago, Intrepid realised more people sought SERT, but not just in a group environment.

Thornton said Intrepid Grp’s 19 DMCs around the world which tailor packages currently generate FIT products, a quarter of which is for non-Intrepid group brands.

“We are increasingly seeing our DMCs operating great product, so we see a great growth opportunity in non-group product, so lets start to build an FIT program,” he told TD.

Thornton said the learnings and understandings from Latin America FIT specialist Chimu Adventures, with which Intrepid inked an alliance recently ( TD 15 Aug), could be overlaid “with our size, scale and global presence”.

The Intrepid boss said “we want to place more focus on FIT” with plans to adopt the learnings into Asia, Africa & Europe with a “formal FIT program” to come.