A Personal Note…
I’ve been incredibly lucky to work within Intrepid for the last four or so years. When you’re selling and marketing a product that you have total confidence in the quality of, it feels easy. Don’t get me wrong, it’s hard graft — as much as sitting around on Zoom calls and fiddling with spreadsheets can be classed as ‘graft’ — but talking about a product that’s delighted, and created memories for, 100,000s of people worldwide it feels a lot less like work.
Almost 3 years ago, I switched from our multi-day business to our day tour business — Urban Adventures. As part of the brand, I’ve been able to work a lot more closely to the end product and have learned so much from swashbuckling tourism entrepreneurs who, together, formed a network that not only built bonds across borders but lifted each other to new heights. These are some of the finest storytellers in the world, dedicated to unearthing compelling stories involving local characters to share with travellers from across the world.
With some reshuffling of teams and remits, I’ll be getting reacquainted with multi-day touring. I’ll still be working on day tours with Urban Adventures and partners in the tours and activities space, but I’ll also be helping to grow our outbound business by working closely with our DMC network, PEAK DMC.
The thing I love most about my role at Urban Adventures is the chance to help others grow their businesses — whether that’s internal with our local operators, with distribution partners, or with brands that we white label for. When values and goals are aligned, it’s incredibly rewarding to see partnerships grow and successes shared. I’m excited that the changes to my role will offer the opportunity to exercise this purpose with an even broader range of partners inside and outside of the travel industry.
On the multi-day side, my primary focus will be partnering with tour operators whose value prop promises customers sustainable experience-rich travel as well as brands with an audience that they want to get closer to by developing travel experiences. Now, more than ever, it’s critical that we shape touring operations to not only deliver exceptional, enriching experiences for customers; but to do so in a way that benefits people and the planet. We’ve done a lot of great work and have made so much progress, but there’s still so much work to be done.
As I get back up to speed with multi-day, one of the things I’m most looking forward to is reconnecting with some old friends in the industry and making new ones. So if you’re reading this and fancy a catch up over a virtual coffee (or something stronger, because it’s 2020 after all), just pop me a note and we’ll carve out the time.