What:
The Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) held its annual Adventure Travel World Summit in Puerto Varas, Chile, earlier this month. A new seminar was offered to help adventure tour operators work with travel agents.
Why It Matters:
The summit brought more than 700 attendees from nearly 60 countries together for networking and education, including a first-ever panel focused on travel agents. The panel was moderated by Perry Lungmus, vice president of Travel Leaders, which entered into a partnership with ATTA this year, and included Sarah Nelson Wandrey, owner of A World of Travel; Sarah Postler, of Tourism Australia; Amit Sankhala, of tour operator Encounters Asia; and Stevie Christie of The Wilderness Collective, U.K. and Ireland, another tour company. The session was standing room only, and the high interest in this topic bodes well for future relationships between operators and agents.
Fast Facts:
- Travel Leaders is the first official consortia partner for the ATTA.
- The partnership between Travel Leaders and ATTA began in May.
- According to figures presented during the panel, the percentage of travelers using a travel agent grew from 12 percent in 2013 to 18 percent in 2014.
What They Are Saying:
“At Travel Leaders, we developed an adventure travel training program this year with the ATTA and it’s about 60 pages long,” said Perry Lungmus, vice president of Travel Leaders. “It covers everything from understanding the market to having experiences and recording them to creating a marketing plan so you can take what you learned and sell from it.”
The Details
Adventure Travel Trade Associationwww.adventuretravel.biz
