Beware the commoditisation of adventure travel: G Adventures

Beware the commoditisation of adventure travel: G Adventures
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Consumers are having to become more and more savvy as a growing number of operators jump on the adventure travel and social responsibility bandwagon, according to G Adventures.

Although the adventure label was once considered a deterrent, identified with high adrenaline, high risk activities like skydiving or mountain climbing, it has now become fashionable to adopt the word, founder Bruce Poon Tip told Travel Today.

“Everyone’s trying to be adventure,” he said. “Even Contiki is now trying to call themselves an adventure company when really they’re still just getting drunk and laying on a bus around Europe.”

However, the Canada-based company’s long-standing commitment to the sector is now seeing it reap the benefits as the idea of adventure becomes increasingly “commoditised”, he claimed.

“It’s confusing for consumers, but it’s also to our benefit,” he said. “We’ve always stayed true to our purpose and so people understand what we’re about.”

Poon Tip referred to last year’s failed F-word rebrand by rival operator Geckos Adventures as an example of “when big business tries to get into this type of market.”

“It shows how out of touch they are with what that market is,” he said.

He also branded the recent addition of a range of former “no-go” zones into the programs of both Geckos and Peregrine as a “desperate attempt” and insisted G Adventures will not be following into similar areas.

“There’s a right time and a proper time for people to visit these places,” he said. “So we’d never get involved with that – no.

“Look at Geckos specifically, they’ve gone from trying to swear at people, to adding less travelled areas trying to be pioneering, but people wouldn’t go there because it’s irresponsible.”

However, although Poon Tip insisted G remains committed to its brand promise, he admitted that its offering has “softened”.

“Our demographic is getting older and younger at same time,” he said. “But the difference is it’s all one brand.

“Our relationship with our customers is built all around our brand promise – whether we go luxury, yolo, active or family. We still deliver a very specific and very aggressive brand promise about social enterprise.”

The operator’s long-term commitment to social enterprise and delivering benefits to the countries in which it operates is also increasingly being copied by rivals, according to Poon Tip.

“It’s very odd when suddenly Contiki cares for the oceans when a year before that’s not what they were promoting,” he said.

“It’s confusing for the consumers and that’s unfortunate. My hope is that consumers become more and more savvy and understand the difference.”

With big conglomerates motivated by generating shareholder value, their sincerity on matters of social responsibility is questioned by Poon Tip who identified “greenwashing” as “the biggest problem we have in this industry at the moment”.

“The consumer has to dig deeper, and hopefully they do.”

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