G Adventures founder Bruce Poon Tip has said the company will ‘continue to grow’ its relationship with the UK travel trade, describing agents as ‘instrumental’ to the company.
Speaking at the GX Summit in Cambodia last week, G Adventures founder Bruce Poon Tip told Travel Gossip: “We work more with the travel trade in the UK than any other country in the world.
“We are continually growing our relationship, with G Touring because we have Travelsphere, Just You, TruTravels, and so we work with the travel trade more than ever.”
Bruce highlighted Trailfinders as one of G Adventures’ biggest customers globally, alongside major retailers including Hays and Travel Counsellors.
“The UK is our biggest travel agent market in the world. So we’ll continue to grow it. I think we’re number one with most retailers in our space, right? We’ll continue offering them products.”
Since November 2023, the company has launched three new collections, Geluxe, Solo-ish and National Geographic Signature, which have become their ‘most successful products to date’.
Bruce said the UK market had a difficult start to the year, but bookings began to recover from June onwards.
“March, April and May had been devastating for G Adventures in the UK,” he said.
The recovery comes as G Adventures continues to focus on its relationship with agents, which Bruce said is particularly important because of the nature of its product.
“We have a very high touch product. It’s not like selling a cabin on a ship or selling a room in a resort,” he said.
“People need to know how to prepare to go on one of our trips. They need to know what kind of shoes to wear, what kind of weather it’s gonna be, whether they need insect repellent, whether they need to take shots from malaria.
“It’s not simple booking one of our trips. The travel agent is instrumental in a high touch product.
“We have very few customers that book, you know, start to finish online. At some point, they have to talk to someone, right? Because it’s not as easy as just growing booking capacity, like more resorts or bigger ships, it’s more complex than that.”
This year, 16 travel agents from the UK attended GX, the fourth edition of G Adventures’ annual event, organised in partnership with Planeterra, a non-profit organisation that uses community tourism to improve local livelihoods, protect the environment, and preserve culture.
The agents visited a range of social enterprise projects supported by Planeterra ahead of the World Community Tourism Summit, which took place on World Tourism Day on 27 September.
Travel Counsellor Natalie Gosher, who attended GX, said the experience had given her stories she could take back to customers.
She said: “I’ve loved it. I loved being surrounded by it all, it’s just brilliant energy. I feel like it’s such a positive, optimistic environment to be in, being around so many G employees, you can really feel how dynamic they are. Hearing the stories from Planeterra partners, it really brings their impact to life.
“It has been really emotional not every trip gives you that or makes you feel that way, and I really feel for me, the people, the stories, the actual direct impact that we have made just by being here has really shone through.”
Travel Counsellor Karen Thornton added: “G’s whole vibe of travel as a force for good, I’ve really felt that, and I didn’t expect to feel it quite as much as I have. To actually see it in action, in front of me, first hand, was really humbling.”
To the travel trade, Bruce said: “We have reps in every region and we run events all over the place. They can come to GX, but also we can come to you and we’ll set you up. We’ll do all the training of your people, we’ll come in, we’ll run events for you, right across the country.”
