Beyond the Cosmos

What happens when eight decades of European motorcoach touring meets the Baby Boomer generation? What if the Boomers suddenly say they would rather be trekking through India on their own, or cruising the Rhine in a riverboat, instead of taking an “if-it’s-Tuesday-it-must-be-Belgium” tour? If you’re a smart tour operator, you listen. And then you embark on an ambitious expansion.

That is exactly what has unfolded recently at the venerable Globus and Cosmos. Long known for its dual brands of escorted tours — Globus for tourists with first-class tastes and Cosmos for more budget-conscious travelers — the company has added two new brands: Monograms, for independent travelers, and Avalon Waterways, offering European river cruising. This August, Group Voyagers Inc., the North American office marketing and selling this family of brands, also announced the acquisition of Brennan Vacations as its deluxe travel brand, a capstone in the company’s trinity of offerings.

Why, when so many other companies are still shifting through the troubled wake of Sept. 11, SARS, war and a fat euro, is Globus and Cosmos embarking on such an aggressive expansion?

Phillip Gordon, president and CEO of Group Voyagers, said it has to do with putting a mission into motion.

“Well over a year ago, we embarked on the mission of becoming the tour operator of choice to the travel agent community and our various partners,” he said. “To do that, we know we need to offer several products. We need the right product for each customer and the best service.”

The goal of the mission, admitted Gordon, is like the goal of any sensible business mission — to survive in a tight market and make money along the way.

The Australian-born Gordon is no stranger to the financial topography of the travel industry. A 28-year veteran of Globus and Cosmos, he took over the reins of Group Voyagers this year with the passing of Paolo Mantegazza, grandson of founder Antonio Mantegazza. Antonio still keeps watch on operations — a sepia photograph hangs beside Gordon’s desk at the company’s headquarters in Littleton, Colo.

Where the right product in Antonio’s day was a bus tour around the Swiss lakes, understanding what the right product is these days has been a bit more challenging. The travel industry is riding a tide of changing demographics and changing demands, said Scott Nisbet, executive director of sales, marketing and customer care.

“It’s not as cookie-cutter as it used to be,” Nisbet said. “The Baby Boomers are coming in and they want different things. You used to be able to do a certain number of core trips — multi-day trips — and that did it. But now people want to go to Cambodia, they want to cruise through Germany, they want a new level of comfort and luxury.”

It was out of this mix of mission and market that the company conducted proprietary research and undertook a serious effort to reevaluate existing products, identify market gaps and target potential opportunities. What emerged were three areas of interest — independent touring, river cruises and deluxe travel.

Monograms: Independent Thinking at Work
Monograms, launched in 2003, is the boldest addition to the Globus and Cosmos family and was created to capture the interest and market share of the independent traveler.

Nisbet said the brand isn’t so unrelated to traditional offerings as it might seem.

“We’ve been offering similar trips through our city-style products for years,” he said. “But we’ve expanded the options dramatically, changed a bit and rebranded it as Monograms.”

Monograms combines the buying power of a package tour with the flexibility that independent travelers crave. Air, land and hotel are all arranged for the client, but their time is left open to pursue their own interests and allow for a greater sense of spontaneity and discovery. All without the backdrop of a group.

The special ingredient that bridges independent travel with Monograms is the addition of an on-site host.

“In the lobby of every hotel is a local host who can help you get tickets to a play, sign you up for a sightseeing tour or get you directions to a castle,” said Nisbet. “It’s like having your personal concierge.”

Shay DeWeese, owner of Cloud 9 Travel in Bakersfield, Calif., recently sold her first Monograms tour — a mother and daughter on a two-week trip from London to Paris.

“It was the perfect fit. The daughter was an actress and wanted to see the theater in both cities. They also wanted to get tickets to a play at Stratford-Upon-Avon,” she said. “What they both didn’t want was to travel with a group and have all their time prebooked with activities that didn’t interest them.”

While Monograms took care of all the logistics, the local host worked with the pair to arrange their day-tours and special activities.

If the concept behind the brand is simple, the financial incentive is even more obvious, said Nisbet. Independent travel is a fast-growing trend among Baby Boomers. And with 69 million of them — many of whom make up the company’s clientele each year — they are a market tour operators would do well to listen to.

“We saw a great potential both in our research and in the demand we were hearing about,” said Nisbet. “So we said let’s try to do something bigger around this.”

Avalon River Cruising: Going Small
Going smaller instead of bigger was the idea behind Avalon Waterways, the boutique river cruises launched in 2003. River cruising is a more intimate experience than traditional cruising, said Gordon. The boats are smaller and less crowded than those plying the Mediterranean ports.

Ship size aside, river cruising is another area where Group Voyagers saw a growing demand and a financial opportunity.

“More than 100,000 passengers take European river cruises every year,” said Gordon. “That’s a big segment of the marketplace and something we wanted to tap into.”

Tapping into it meant working out an exclusive agreement to market and sell the Avalon Waterways brand and products on three ships — the Poetry, Artistry and Symphony. A code-share agreement allows Amadeus Waterways to cross book the Symphony.

The actual operations were a natural progression for Group Voyagers. The company has had successful cruising products in their portfolio for years. They blend the benefits of touring with the unpack once attitude of cruisers.

What makes Avalon Waterways distinctive from traditional Mediterranean ports-of-call cruising, however, is that river cruisers put clients into the center of the continent.

“You are right there in the heart of Europe along the rivers where the great cities grew up,” said Nisbet. “It’s also a relaxing and immersing experience. It’s not about swimming in a pool or climbing on a rock wall. It’s about immersing yourself in the cities and learning about the culture. You can dock in downtown Vienna, walk off the ship and start exploring.”

Nisbet said Avalon Waterways has been so successful in such a short time that the company is looking to get more ships on more rivers and expand beyond Europe to Asia.

“River cruising is still relatively new to Americans, but it is growing and becoming popular,” he said. “It’s still fairly early on, but already we can see that the potential is great.”

Edna Frease, president of Sand Canyon Travel, Inc., in Valencia, Calif., an associate of Carlson Wagonlit Travel, agreed. She said Europe is coming back strong and the expansion of the boutique river cruising product comes at a perfect time.

“We’re getting a lot of demand for these cruises,” she said. “People love the idea that they unpack once and get to the see the heart of Europe instead of the ports of the Mediterranean.” Fellow agent DeWeese was so excited about Avalon that she booked her first river cruise for next summer.

“I’m shutting down my office for a week,” she said. “I never do that. So that shows you how much confidence I have in this product.”

Brennan Vacations: Going Upscale
With the creation of Monograms and the expansion of the river cruising portfolio it might seem surprising that there were any gaps left at all within the family of brands. But Gordon said one nagged him.

“We always had Cosmos for the value-conscious traveler, and Globus for the first-class experience, but one of the markets we missed was the deluxe traveler,” he said. That changed in August when Group Voyagers announced the acquisition of Seattle-based Brennan Vacations, a company that operates deluxe escorted tours throughout North America and Ireland.

Gordon said that in addition to being an immediate way to grow their base and market share of North American business, the acquisition solidified an informal relationship with Brennan Vacations founder and CEO Robert Brennan that has spanned more than 15 years.

“We’ve developed a great relationship of trust and collaboration and sharing over the years,” he said. “The significant appeals of the Brennan acquisition were that it is a very respected brand in the industry, and the service and product are excellent.”

For Robert Brennan, founder and CEO for Brennan Vacations, the feeling was mutual. “We’re a perfect fit with Group Voyagers, Inc.’s brands,” he said. “Both companies have a common passion for providing our consumers a quality experience — from deluxe and first-class operations to budget travel.”

With all the pieces to the puzzle in place now, Gordon is the first to admit that it’s been a heady time at Group Voyagers. Careful research and wise investments are starting to pay off with double-digit gains.

“We never experienced growth like this in a single year,” he said. “But we are enjoying it, this rebound after two down years.”

When asked if more acquisitions are in the making, Gordon said no. For now, his vision for the next decade has more to do with nurturing the company’s relationships with travel agents and growing the portfolios, than in acquiring even more brands. Brennan Vacations, he said, is a perfect candidate for such growth.

“Because of our expertise and strength in Europe,” he said, “as we move forward in 2006, we will begin to create even more Brennan Vacation products on the deluxe level, potentially in other destinations such as Asia, South Pacific and South America.”

On the heels of their recent expansion, Group Voyagers has plenty of work ahead, Gordon admitted. But he’s excited and has confidence that his more than 250 employees at the headquarters are up for the task.

“We’ve set the strategies for our growth,” he said. “Now it’s just a matter of developing what we’ve created.”

www.groupvoyagers.com