G Adventures upbeat on rival shake-up

G Adventures upbeat on rival shake-up
By admin


G Adventures' founder Bruce Poon Tip has criticised the ongoing "commoditisation" of the adventure travel space, despite profiting from reduced competition in the market.

Speaking to Travel Today this week, Poon Tip referred to a recently announced management restructure at Peak Adventure Travel Group which will see four brands – Peregrine, Geckos, Intrepid and Adventure Tours Australia – share leadership.

"TUI which bought those companies had aspired to commoditise experiential travel, and that's exactly what they are doing with this multiple brand strategy," he said.

"I think it's sad. They were all great individual companies."

However, he claimed the changes are ultimately "great" for G.

"Instead of having 18 competitors, we have one."

Earlier this week, Peak also announced it will launch a multi-brand agent loyalty program later this year. But, while Poon Tip revealed G Adventures will introduce a scheme to reward consumers for their loyalty in the next three months, he insisted a program for agents is unnecessary.

"They're announcing that they're doing something new but we've been committed to the agency model since the very beginning," he said.

"We reward agents quite handsomely with commissions for their loyalty and our commissions are some of the best in the industry so we appreciate agents."

Globally,70% of G Adventures' business is through the trade, but in Australia that figure is higher, at 90%.

The operator runs its annual Uber Massive Incentive to reward its top selling agents, with the program growing larger each year.

Meanwhile, Poon Tip said a wave of massive discounting that was prevalent in the Australian market over the last few years appears to have eased.

"Australia last year was like a Wild West discounting frenzy," he said. "We had to weather that storm."

Since January, the firm has recorded growth of more than 50% from the Australian market, above its global average of 40%.

Poon Tip attributed the strong performance in large part to its introduction of 100% guaranteed departures and revealed the cost to the business incurred by the service had been $600,000 – less than the $800,000 he forecast last year.

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