Adventure World will focus on growing consumer awareness of its brand as it seeks to strengthen its global presence under its new owner The Travel Corporation (TTC).
Upon the announcement of the acquisition from NRMA in October, TTC appointed former Contiki Australia managing director Fiona Hunt to drive the company’s growth at a global level, taking it beyond its traditional Australia and New Zealand base.
While the business is operating as normal following the handover at the start of November, Hunt told Travel Today that a strategic review has been undertaken across the entire business including subsidiary brands Creative Cruising, Coral Seas Travel, Value Tours – Ski New Zealand and iCruise New Zealand. Its aim was to determine “what the business needs to look like from here” in order to evolve into a global player. The findings will inform a strategic plan to be implemented from this month.
However, Hunt stressed that there will be no change to Adventure World’s positioning, highlighting its place in a market niche that is “relatively clear and uncluttered” as a crucial advantage. While other adventure travel companies generally operate group tours, Adventure World offers FIT, tailored itineraries that are more in line with the offerings of destination specific specialists. But clarifying that brand position will be a priority, she revealed.
“We know what we are, we know what we need to be, the next step is now how do we get that message out,” she said.
“We have fantastic trade support and fantastic trade distribution, but we want to be a brand that is bought and not just sold – and that’s really about getting the brand out there.”
Hunt identified the need to deliver a strengthened consumer brand position and brand activity as a “key focus”.
“It’s about allowing the customer to get to us every way that they want to – that means growing brand awareness across all channels and growing the business across all channels,” she said.
In addition to a “multi-faceted” consumer-facing website, social media will become an important tool. Adventure World has just appointed new digital marketing manager, Nathan Ting, with a content manager to be recruited shortly.
“One of the key decisions that we made was to get some digital expertise in the building straight. We wanted someone with a lot of good digital expertise in fast moving businesses to get that energy into our digital.”
More will become clear over the course of the coming months, as the strategic plan is put into effect.
Hunt is confident the swift implementation of a few key changes will soon significantly benefit the business.
“We have an opportunity to refine some of the internal processes, put some serious sales and marketing activity behind the business and really drive that consumer awareness,” she said.
“There are some fairly key things that we need to put in place which are very clear to us, so we’ll put those in place very quickly and we’re very confident that this time next year we’ll be in a strong position.”
