Travellary

“How far we travel matters less than those we meet along the way.” Mark Twain
Travellary (their name is meant to reflect an interest in travel for its own sake
rather than merely to get to a destination) are a specialist travel agent with a
specific unique selling proposition (USP) – interesting trips for concerned and
involved travellers offering the chance to do something unique.
The customer base
Travellary was originally set-up by two friends (Nick and Becca) in their last
year at University, and has grown dramatically over the past 14 years.
Travellary put together packages of ‘travel components’ for those who do not
want a conventional package holiday.
Travellary’s customer has changed from being ‘the traveller with very little
money but the time to travel to far-flung parts of the world’’ (typically a
student) to being ‘the traveller who has more money but quite a lot less time and
therefore want Travellary to come up with the ideas and arrangements on their
behalf ‘ (typically NOT a student).
Some holidays are for quite large groups and some are for individuals or small
parties. For Travellary a ‘holiday’ may be short (a couple of days) or long
(months) but most are one to four weeks long. A sale may be to an individual or
to a large group, but most are to couples and to groups up to about 8 people.
Travellary’s focus
Typically their customers, whatever their budget level, want to take holidays
that include adventurous and unusual elements in ways that are good value for
the money they spend. So:
• Mainstream Mediterranean cruise ships are out - white water rafting,
storm chasing, komodo dragon viewing, horse riding in Mongolia, and
interesting train journeys are in;
• Chain hotels are out – one-off hotels, boutique hotels, hotels in very out-
of-the-way places, hostels and local accommodation are in;
• chauffeured limos are in – but so are cable cars, cycle-rickshaws and local
buses;
• high costs are possible – but room & board aid volunteering is possible
too.
At one extreme Travellary recently put together a responsible holiday to
Antartica, the world’s highest, driest, coldest and cleanest continent for a
group of travellers keen to experience this unique ecosystem, climate and
history in luxury. On that very same day Travellary also organised a hands-on
farming experience for a couple to stay at an Andalusian farmhouse for a week
put together with the lowest carbon footprint possible and also a trip for a set
of 6 friends who had only a modest budget (so needed really good value for
money) to attend first the Green Man Festival and then Burning Man Festival
with ‘something interesting’ to do in the week in between. [For your information,
what Travellary suggested for this latter group was: a few days walking in the
Brecon Beacons and then a few days of Grand Canyon rambling, including the new
viewing platform, but also walking with locals and camping on the canyon floor.]
Background on Travellary’s service
Themed holidays are very popular with Travellary travellers – examples include
trips built around music festivals/clubs; great train journeys; archaeological
digs, carnivals at Rio and so on. The two owners have recently added ‘packages’
built around religious and semi-religious (New Age for instance) places and
events. In serving the well-off free-spirit festival goer, Travellary will
integrate bookings for Camp Kerala at Glastonbury and similar luxury provision
at festivals into holiday arrangements, and this year put together trips to
Vintage at Goodwood. They no longer target the classic student festival
market.
Alongside ‘roughing it’ type packages, more and more of Travellary’s customers
are tech-hungry as well as adventurous and want their packages to include
information on WiFi availability, roaming rules and so on. It isn’t only, or even
mainly, outdoor adventure type holidays that Travellary put together, customers
also want trips built around cultural adventures, history and what might be
called ‘dark tourism’ (holocaust tourism, slavery heritage tourism, prison
tourism, disaster site tourism, battlefield tourism and cemetery tourism).
Travel that can improve the world is often specified, boutique hotels that are
tied into responsible tourism initiatives such as offering ‘seeing hands’ massage
treatments allowing blind people to earn a living within tourism; hotels linked to
training institutes; cultural events; marine eco-tourism trips; and so on. Lodges,
treks, local food and plenty of chances to meet and mix with people and wildlife
are attractive. With this customer base, far flung and remote destinations
score where cash can be injected into the heart of the community that would
have few other commercial opportunities apart from subsistence agriculture
over destructive forms of ethno-tourism.
With the growth of concerns about the environment and pollution levels and
responsibility for the ‘global village’ there has also been a significant growth in
the eco-tourist market. Travellary are finding more and more customers want
the company to offer outlets for beneficial and contributory tourism, especially
participation in clean-up and community development activities, but on a scale
achievable by professionals (young and older) who also have full working lives so
cannot, or do not want to, take part in traditional volunteer schemes. This is
mirrored by a growth in requests for activity holidays built around similar
themes in the UK. Travellary find that there is significant money spent by the
ethical, non-polluting, low-impact or positive-impact/contributory tourist who
wants to ‘do something real’ - or cultural - in an alternative way. There is no
doubt that, in the market served by Travellary, concerns over the environmental
impact of flights, as well as the well-publicised problems with air travel over the
past couple of years, has driven an interest in close to home holidays. Travellary
are therefore finding that interest in travel to far flung places is reduced in
their market by an awareness of the potential harm done by ‘empty’ and/or
destructive tourism and the environmental harm done by the carbon footprint
of long air flights.
In summary – Travellary provide holidays of real interest for the imaginative
and mentally adventurous (and sometimes physically adventurous) traveller using
companies & individuals that win awards (such as Virgin Holidays Responsible
Tourism Awards). Travellary will do as much or as little of the organising as the
traveller wishes, even extending in some case to holiday aftercare.
The business issues
That’s their specialist, niche marketplace. Internally Travellary are more
conventional. They operate out of an attractive shop/office location in York
which gets very good ‘foot fall’ and which they will be keeping. Nick and Becca
are the primary holiday ideas experts and have been joined by a hard-working
team of 6 others working with them. Collectively, Nick, Becca and the team
make the various bookings as necessary and put together the documents needed
by the customers.
Travellary experience distinct phases in their interactions with customers:
1. Pre-booking: when customers engage in information gathering/
planning/scheduling/questioning/preparation/awareness raising and
groups are often doing all this in complex sets of interactions over time
and space;
2. Point of sale: when customers, including groups, book a trip (this phase is
NOT instantaneous – it may take place over several days) and groups may
pay collectively or individually;
3. Post-booking but before the trip: when customers engage in further (1)
and (2) as they add to and develop their plans and again groups are often
doing this in interactions over time and space;
4. During the holiday support: when travellers contact for customer service,
advice and support but also for (1) and (2) again, groups are often doing
this in complex interactions over time and space;
5. Post-holiday follow-up/ongoing customer service: when customers stay in
touch. They interact with with Travellary, with others in their group,
and/or encourage other potential travellers. And seamlessly loop into (1)
again (Travellary hope!).
Of course some aspects overlap, and customer service issues arise at any and all
stage. It is common for additional features to be added to holidays after an
initial booking has been made. At present Travellary cannot do much to support
the group aspect of many trips they arrange for groups but it is important that
ecommerce does. Travellary want to include group-focussed aspects, wherever
relevant, at each of the stages of the relationship between Travellary and the
group and within the group.
Travellary suffer all of the usual difficulties experienced by small businesses
enjoying strong growth. Travellary have particular trouble with the following
areas of activity:
1. Building up their customer base – they want more ‘presence’ so that
greater numbers of imaginative travellers know Travellary exist and what
they offer.
2. Supporting their customers with all the various types of information
travellers need, both to decide on destinations and to make the best of a
destination & trip style once chosen. The Travellary team is spending a
great deal of time answering predictable questions and providing details
of who to contact for what. Several members of a single group that are
due to holiday together will get in touch individually to each ask the same
things. Because of the nature of the trips arranged, calls from travellers
sometimes come in ‘out of hours’. These calls are as likely to be asking
for ideas and advice as for problems.
3. Expanding their focus on their fastest growing customer sector which is
the older traveller; the over-60s who do not hand in their travel
imaginations when they collect their bus pass. Travellary have been
following the money by accessing the grey disposable income and wish to
do more in this respect. The word ‘adventure’ may get a different
definition but all the same ethos applies for this very discerning type of
customer. Customers in this category are sometimes in groups or pairs
but very often are a solo traveller.
4. Exploiting the planned online provision to support and enhance the already
good quality information available directly from their York base by
offering a kiosk to serve as an attractive simplified access point for
actual and potential customers to use when in the York shop/office.
5. Exploit the community development, interactivity and Web 2.0 potential
of ecommerce to do something unique in creating a ‘holiday area’ for
individuals that also has extended aspects for group support for the
chance to offer individual-to-individual communications within a group.
So, Travellary want analysis and a prototype of where ecommerce offers best
support to them and their customers. They don’t want something that just acts
as a web-based brochure nor something that’s just an e-shop since neither fits
them, their aspirations or their customers. They want an ecommerce venture
that fully exploits appropriate value-adding and cross-selling opportunities
throughout every phase of their relationship with customers and they want it to
fully contribute to each of their five business issues.
Appendix – Extract from a recent interview with Becca & Nick which appeared
in r:Travel magazine.
“Within global tourism there are those who focus on low-carbon technology, but
we at Travellary & our customers believe that responsible tourism is about
making sure that local people gain employment and financial benefit from
tourism, and that local cultures, habitats, wildlife and traditions are protected
and supported. For instance, Travellary advocate that all our customers engage
in ‘mind tourism’ to really get the most out of every travel opportunity. As part
of our support pack we brief all our travellers on how to ‘keep their social radar
switched on’. We advise on how to communicate with locals in coffee shops,
queues, waiters, with anyone. We sort out localised cues on some questions to
ask – and we always suggest that our travellers follow up all of these questions
with a subsidiary “was that so in your case?” query. We want everyone to really
learn as well as visit. Here’s a set of cues we included in our support pack for a
trip for a group of six to the Andaman Islands:
• Here, who tends to look after children when they are small?
• Are parents strict?
• Is it very competitive at school?
• What do women here look for in a man (or vice versa)?
• At what age to women usually get married? Men?
• What are the most important things in life for people here?
• Are many people religious?
• Do people work long hours?
• Do families eat together at home?
• Do people enjoy American films and television programmes?”