G Adventures‘ new premium-end program has been a runaway success since its launch last year, says company Founder and CEO Bruce Poon Tip, with the adventure specialist rapidly expanding its Geluxe Collection to now encompass 45 itineraries in 26 countries.
“We found a hole in the market that didn’t exist,” Poon Tip told LATTE last week.
“Our concept is community tourism and always been associated with comprising the quality of the accommodation,” he explained. “We felt that we could offer a program with updated accommodation, upgraded food, only go to remote areas with an active part that makes it unique.”
Food plays a big part of the Geluxe Collection with more meals included, he said. G Adventures’ research identified guests would be receptive to higher levels of activity, food and accommodation, but still centred around a core of community development and community tourism.
“There’s a lot of premium product out there and premium is defined by accommodation level.
“Geluxe is not five-star, we don’t define our product by accommodation. We define it by the activity level and we’re offering this product in the highest accommodation that we’ve had.”
The initial program was offered in Botswana, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, Vietnam and Zimbabwe, with departures starting from May 2024.
Soft launched last September and officially rolled out in November, Poon Tip admits to LATTE that G Adventures was caught off-guard by the market’s response, despite the program’s heavy research and dedication to developing the Geluxe Collection.
“We are surprised. We’ve been working on the product for five years and our data shows our customers are staying more active and staying healthy longer, and they want comfort.
“We are getting a lot of first-time customers, especially through trade partners. The feedback has been great.”
Highlights on each Geluxe trip include at least one ‘Your OMG Stay’ and one ‘Your OMG Day’ on every trip – that by definition is stand-out accommodation and activities.
The Geluxe offering in Peru, Japan and Vietnam are selling “very, very well,” for the brand globally, Poon Tip says, whereas more specifically for Australian travellers, Greece and Italy are popular.
“80% of bookings are 50-plus years of age which is the market we were targeting,” he said.
“Our data was showing that our customers wanted this, especially in Australia and North America, so we kept pushing. It took us a while to identify unique products and unique activities,” Poon Tip said during his late-night phone chat with LATTEon Friday. The bulk of Geluxe’s development took place during the pandemic and the end result has delivered beyond expectation.
“Geluxe is the fastest-growing new product that we’ve launched ever. Until recently, it was National Geographic product. Over the years we’ve rolled out Local Living, National Geographic, National Geographic Family and lots of different products, something to appeal to an older market.”
“Geluxe has been one of the smartest decisions that we’ve ever made in building a product based on a database decision.”
“We knew there was a market there for our customers. They have grown up with us and they’re a more active audience.”
Phase two of the development added 17 new trips in 10 countries to the collection. The new destinations are Argentina/Chile (Patagonia), Ecuador (Galapagos), Iceland, Ireland, India, Kenya, Portugal, Spain, Tanzania and Turkey, with departures available from October 2024. The maximum group size is 16, with an average of 10-12 people per departure.
Phase 3 is already well underway and will be introduced before the end of the year, Poon Tip told LATTE, noting that there are currently “no tours in Australia or New Zealand, the destinations are being researched, with NZ a little bit ahead in product development.”
See www.gadventures.com/geluxe
