Q: Brett, here we are at the start of another year. How was 2025 for Intrepid?
A: It was a record year for us. We set ourselves a pretty bullish target of 18% growth year-on-year globally from all of our source markets and we ended up hitting that, which was pretty impressive.
What was probably even more encouraging was seeing our biggest market – the Australian market – grow at 26%. Historically we’ve seen Australia growing at maybe seven or eight per cent and our other source markets, like the U.S. and UK, growing much quicker.
It’s been really encouraging because having that strong core going really well allows us to do a lot of other things we’re trying to do within the business.
Q: So what do you put this fantastic result down to?
A: We seem to have some good strategies in place and the brand work that we’re doing getting our name out there seems to be working.
Obviously we’re also getting a lot of help from our partners, like Flight Centre and Helloworld, and I think it’s also fair to say we’ve invested more in marketing than we have in the past.
We’re also trying to extend our audience. While small group travel is a small category, it’s a fast growing category and we see our job as trying to help grow that category.
We’ve been speaking to more mainstream audiences, getting the brand out there and trying to encourage people to come and learn a bit more about small group travel with Intrepid.
It looks like that strategy is working because we’re seeing it in the numbers. The vast majority of customers coming through the door now are new customers who haven’t travelled with Intrepid before.
Q: Are you noticing any particular trends within that growth?
A: I think it’s fair to say much of the growth is fuelled by the baby boomers, who have got more time and money compared to a lot of other segments.
A lot of our newer customers are definitely within the 50 plus bracket, looking for our comfort and premium products. While all our travel styles are growing, we’re seeing our premium and comfort products growing the quickest.
Q: I believe family travel is also enjoying strong growth?
A: It is and it’s great to see that – it is booming for us. I actually think we probably need a lot more itineraries and departures in that space.
It’s obviously confined around certain periods when the holidays are on. I take my family on one of our family trips every year and the kids love it.
We’ve just launched a host of new countries and different styles for that market as there’s a lot more demand from families wanting more comfort-style products.
We expect that growth to continue, just with the change of those generations and how they travel with their families going forward.
Q: Domestic travel is another area where Intrepid have been expanding. What’s the thinking behind that move?
A: I think we realised coming out of Covid that one big issue we had was that we didn’t really have any domestic travel. We’d never really focused on Australia as a destination.
But domestic travel is actually three times bigger than the outbound market, so it’s a huge part of travel in its own right. So there were a lot of good reasons for us to look at domestic travel.
For us, it’s also a much lower impact style of travel – being closer to home, it is much better for the environment.
We also thought it was another great way to have more meaningful product available for our community and our customers.
So for the last three years we’ve been growing our domestic range really well. We’ve now got about 70 itineraries throughout Australia.
It’s a really big focus for us to continue to grow the domestic part of the business out of Australia. Probably only five or six per cent of our total customers are domestic and I’d like to get that up to 25%.
Q: Was that the reason you acquired Wild Bush Luxury last year?
A: We’re pretty excited to add that to our stable, which should happen officially towards the end of February.
We purchased WBL because it had a national presence and a big focus on walking tours. We really do have ambitions to be one of the one of the biggest walking companies here in Australia and eventually globally.
Walking is a big focus for us and also recently we’ve moved into accommodation – we sell over a million room nights just on our touring product every year. We are working with our suppliers and different accommodation owners to try to create something a bit more differentiated and bespoke for the Intrepid customer.
Q: For someone who hasn’t travelled with Intrepid, what kind of experience will they have?
A: Our itineraries are meaningful and experienced-led itineraries. So while it’s all about getting to understand the culture, meeting locals, traveling with locals, eating local food and having everything organised for you, it’s also about having time to explore on your own.
We’re really conscious that sometimes itineraries can be too busy and we’re trying to slow the pace of our itineraries down, giving time for our customers to go out and explore a city for half a day if they want as well.
Q: Finally, how do you see the future of travel in general?
A: I think we should be very bullish. There’s a reason why there’s a lot of private equity and businesses trying to get into the tourism industry.
More and more people are choosing experiences over buying material stuff and travel is one of the best experiences you can get.
I think people will continue to not see travel as a discretionary spend, but as a must. It’s just about how do we try to make it a bit more sustainable now and hope that travel continues to boom, which we’re positive that it will.
