This article originally appeared the April issue of AGENTatHOME magazine. Subscribe here to receive your free copy each month.
As G Adventures has grown it has become part of a larger company, but its mission remains the same: to be “a social enterprise in the business of changing lives through travel,” said Steve Lima, director of marketing.
That mission goes back to when Bruce Poon Tip started the company in 1990 as a small-group tour operator with a focus on community tourism and how travel can make a positive impact, instilling that belief in all employees and extending it to partners, including travel advisors and their clients.
“I don’t just work for a travel company,” said Lima, “I work for a purpose.”
G Travel Community
With the recent acquisition of several other tour operators, a holding company called G Travel Community (GTC) was formed. Ben Perlo is now CEO and president of G Adventures while Jeff Russill is CEO of GTC. Poon Tip continues to play a highly active role on the board of GTC.
With the larger structure, the company is able to have an even more powerful impact on the places it visits – an impact measured by a proprietary Ripple Score, a tour evaluation that provides data on the money spent locally by G Adventures, including accommodations, restaurants and transportation. The higher the score, the more positive the effect on a community.
Small Groups
That pervasive social consciousness, said Lima, is combined with a quality product offering memorable experiences as the operator has evolved in recent years from its origins as a high-end adventure travel provider. Since about 2015, G Adventures has upgraded accommodations and slowed tour pacing but kept the focus on small groups – 10 passengers on average, a “true small-group operator,” he said. This year, the company expects to move 200,000 people on 15,000 departures, with a choice of more than 750 different trips in 100 countries on every continent.
Although it now offers more programs on the soft-adventure side, a full gamut of options is available, including more active ones like treks to a basecamp at Mount Everest or hiking the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, Lima said.
Sailing Options
The company portfolio also includes three ships and 15 tours in the Galapagos, offering everything from active trips to explorations for families. The newest ship, which debuted last year, is the Reina Silvia Voyager, accommodating just 16 passengers. The sailings are accompanied by a Chief Experience Officer (CEO) naturalist guide who introduces passengers to the wonders of the islands. In addition, there are sailing trips in Greece, Croatia, the Caribbean and elsewhere, as well as expedition cruises in Antarctica.
G Adventures is also focusing on its National Geographic Journeys product, now comprising 90 tours globally under two umbrellas: National Geographic Journeys and National Geographic Family. These are designed to take travelers deeper into cultures and habitats, and offer more inclusions, greater hands-on exploration, interactions with local experts, and the freedom to roam, all within the structure and security of traveling in a small group.
Domestic Offerings
During the pandemic, G Adventures doubled down on domestic tours, refocusing them to appeal to American travelers. With the rise of domestic travel in the last few years, a series of USA Adventures was developed to the American West featuring upgraded accommodations, a slower pace and visits to national parks, Lima said.
G Adventures sells a great majority of its tours through travel advisors and has as many as 85 consortia partnerships, mostly in the U.S. – and it is aggressive in offering incentives to sellers. The annual G-Normous promotion, which runs for the first four months of the year, offers over $75,000 in prizes, including a $10,000 top prize, lots of cash giveaways, free trips and bonus commissions.
Change Makers Summit
In September, the Change Makers Summit – an annual conference for advisors – will return for the first time since 2019 in G Adventures’ top destination, Peru. A Change Makers Challenge is running from March 1-June 30 with 13 advisors chosen from each major market based on their sales and brought to Peru for the event. There they will meet with global purpose specialists and senior leaders for a week.
The feedback from the travel community following the inaugural summit in 2019 was “incredible,” Lima said. “We change the lives of our travelers when they choose to explore the world with us. We’re so excited to not just welcome our valued travel advisors on this special trip, but to also celebrate the return to travel with them.”
Selling G Adventures
The operator offers the National Geographic Journeys Agent Specialist Program, a four-part course that provides advisors with everything they need to know to start booking tours. Sherpa is G Adventures’ advisor booking engine, which lets them book tours, check availability, order brochures, access online training, create marketing collateral and gain access to exclusive deals like G-Normous.
Also inside the portal is the Agent Backpack, filled with helpful selling tips and product training as well as access to a private “Agents of Chance” Facebook group.
G Adventures offers 13 Travel Styles. The newest is Roamies, a collaboration with Hostelworld designed for younger travelers who want to combine the fun of staying in some of the world’s best hostels with the ease and excitement of a G Adventures trip. Another unique Travel Style is Local Living, where travelers unpack once and stay at the same accommodations throughout. Among the options are a winery in Tuscany or a week or at lemon farm.
Travel booking times are shortening back to three to five months, with younger clients booking within one to two months out.
Portrait of the Client
G Adventures’ U.S. clients’ age averaged around 35-42 in the past, but with the expanded National Geographic and National Geographic Family lines, the company is seeing a lift in that range to 47-52. That includes more multigenerational groups on family adventures and more mature customers sailing on the G Expedition polar ship.
Over 68 percent of clients are female.
Hosted solo travelers are a significant contingent of the company portfolio – people avoiding big motorcoach tours but perhaps not ready to explore on their own.
The company is seeing more worldly/conscientious travelers who like knowing their trips are “Built with Purpose” and feature a supplier infrastructure that’s mindful of its impact on communities. The Ripple Score metric “has been super helpful to travelers who want to dig deeper into how their dollars make a difference,” Lima said.
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