Kensington Tours' new rebranding campaign runs deep.

As with most rebranding campaigns, the Kensington rebranding includes a new logo and tagline (“travel becomes you”). It also includes a new website and a new style of travel document. But this rebranding goes so far as to include the rewriting of the company’s mission statement.

The tagline was chosen to represent “Kensington Tours’ dedication to creating deeper, more personalized travel experiences for guests and new destinations more accessible than ever before,” according to a company statement.

The company’s new mission statement, goes much further. It begins with a declaration. Even though Kensington is one of few tour operators to still include the word “tour” in its brand, the mission statement declares, “We are not in the business of booking tours. We’re in the business of satisfying an essential human need.”

In the mood of a philosophical inquiry, the mission statement asks why people “feel the insistent pull of the world?” Is it to see things they haven’t seen, to visit treasures before they are destroyed by the march of industrial civilization? Yes, but according to Kensington’s mission statement, it goes deeper, and Kensington means to meet its customer’s aspirations on their own terms.

“We’re in the business of discovery,” says the mission statement. “People travel to peel away the husk of habit and uncover their true selves. To relax into a purer state of being. To better understand the world and their place in it. To conquer challenges and discover new wells of confidence. Deep down, people believe if they travel enough, they will discover a better self. Our business is not the booking of tours. We are architects of travel.”

However, if you call, the company will still book you a tour if you want.

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