G Adventures has recorded its highest sales month since the pandemic began, with January bookings from the US exceeding expectations. Despite the uncertainty caused by Omicron in the new year, the adventure operator saw confidence grow throughout the month, with travelers booking a broad range of travel experiences across the operator’s 11 travel styles.
Ben Perlo, G Adventures’ managing director for the US and Latin America, said January’s performance is a great indicator that traveler confidence is growing and the pent-up demand that exists is beginning to translate into bookings.
“January is always one of the most important sales months for travel, and this year we found ourselves in a particularly favorable position, thanks to pent-up demand, desirable in-market deals and our ever-growing inventory of trips on offer,” said Perlo. “We’re expecting to see this intent to book increase as more destinations, in particular as Australia, New Zealand, parts of Europe and South America, begin to relax entry requirements.
Having safely run over 2500 trips since September 2020, we’re in a great position to embrace the optimism and positivity in the industry at the moment. We’ve also seen an increase in our customer satisfaction in 2021, as travelers recognise all the extra measures we have put in place to ensure their safety,” Perlo continues.
Here are the top January booking trends and traveler insights from G Adventures:
Travelers looking to travel as soon as possible:
Over the past 22 months, the uncertainty around travel and entry protocol caused book-to-travel windows to rise. However, in the past 8 weeks, G Adventures has seen these lead times reduce drastically, with 39% of bookings from US travelers being made for trips departing between now and the end of April 2022. One reason for this trend is that many people who were infected with Omicron over the holiday season are eager to utilize their window of increased antibodies, and are ready to book a long-awaited trip and are looking to destinations with lower entry requirements such as Mexico, Costa Rica and Peru as well as Jordan in the short term. Also of the bookings over 62% of these travelers are first time booking clients. This continues to show that G Adventures is becoming travelers first choice in choosing a safe small group operator for adventures around the world.
Inquiries for long-haul are up, and travelers are ready to book even without discount:
According to G Adventures’ website traffic, searches for European destinations were up 88% from December 2021 to January 2022, South America searches were up 72% and Asia searches were up 62% month-over-month. Also, interestingly, of G Adventures’ bookings in January, the discount level on purchased trips was down to just an average of 10% off. This shows that travelers know what they want, and are eager to book even without sales.
Young travelers are among top bookers:
As the last to receive vaccines and many being forced to work or study from home, there is huge pent up demand among youth travelers, who are hungry to travel and reconnect with other young travelers. With an incredible selection of adventures on offer for young travelers as part of the 18-to-Thirtysomethings travel style, combined with the newly-launched ‘Roamies’ collection, G Adventures is seeing big demand from travelers aged 18 to 35, with a small increase in young travelers opting to travel alone.
Human contact helps build confidence:
With the need to research entry requirements, border restrictions and testing, the logistics of travel can still be complicated terrain to navigate. G Adventures has seen a larger percentage of bookings through ‘offline bookings’, with travelers choosing options where they have interaction with an expert or agent over booking online. Pre-pandemic two-thirds of bookings came through online channels, but bookings via travel advisors was closer to 50% in January 2022 as travelers turn to experts to feel confident in their booking. G Adventures increased its contact center headcount by 70% ahead of January to support agents and travelers, which saw call and live chat wait times reduce to pre-pandemic levels.
Active travel trend is here to stay:
Early on in the pandemic, G Adventures recorded an increase in web searches for Active adventures, including Everest Base Camp Trek and Mt Kilimanjaro. As travel restarted, this interest translated into sales.It was clear that travelers were eager to lock in those achievement based trips. This trend has continued in 2022, as the Active travel style moved up to third place for bookings made in January 2022 versus 2019. Destinations such as Nepal, Tanzania and Peru are most popular as travelers look to seize the day and complete a challenge of a lifetime.
Inventory backs the sales:
G Adventures currently offers a wide range of inventory, which has been the driving force behind the increase in sales. Coupled with partner relationships (agents, national tourism boards), the tour operator has continued to work hand-in-hand with the industry to help build consumer confidence and ensure that when travelers are ready to book, G Adventures has the infrastructure ready to get them back out on the road ASAP. G Adventures will operate over 750 trips in February and March alone, ranging from closer to home adventures such as hiking in Madeira and the Canary Islands to long-haul options in Costa Rica, Tanzania and Mexico.
For more information on G Adventures, please visit www.gadventures.com.