Intrepid prepares for bumper year as Aussies hit the road

Pent-up international travel demand is tipped to explode as Australians brush off the low dollar and seize the day after several Covid-19-affected years.

Intrepid Travel CEO James Thornton is preparing for significant growth as Aussies dust off their passports. Picture: Aaron Francis/The Australian

Australian-based adventure travel company, Intrepid Travel, is set for a bumper year this year as Australians head off overseas after the Covid lockdown years, despite the low dollar.

“Australians are back to booking overseas travel at 2019 levels, if not higher now,” Intrepid chief executive James Thornton told The Australian.

“Demand is incredibly strong particularly for places like Japan, Europe and part of the Middle East.

“Morocco, Jordan and Egypt are particularly popular with Australians at the moment.”

“Having spent the past two or three years doing up their houses and stuck on these shores, they are now not wanting to miss out on the adventures that they have not been able to experience in the past two or three years.”

The Melbourne based Intrepid, which is majority owned by Darrell Wade and Geoff Manchester, two friends who founded it in 1989, has enjoyed its strongest ever monthly bookings this year in January and February.

An Intrepid veteran of 18 years, British born Thornton has been chief executive for the past six years.

He says the company is expecting to carry over 250,00 travellers this year, with “departed revenue” of over $500m — double the level of last year.

“We are putting on an extra 100 to 150 staff every month to cope with the demand,” he said.

He was speaking on the release of the company’s annual report which saw the company enjoy a cash inflow of $34.3m in 2022 — a reversal of the cash outflow of $31.5m when it had to close its global operations due to Covid travel restrictions.

The company reduced its losses before interest, tax and depreciation from $42.2m in 2021 to $17.4m in 2022.

In 2022, it reopened operations in 86 countries during the year, taking it to a total of 112 countries including a new travel operation to Antarctica, starting late last year.

Australia represents a third of Intrepid’s customer base with the rest mainly from the US and the UK.

Mr Thornton recalls his shock at Prime Minister Scott Morrison urging Australians to return home as Covid-19 rapidly spread around the globe. (Photo by AFP)

The company had enjoyed record levels of bookings in early 2020 when its operations were all but closed due to the pandemic.

Thornton remembers being in a meeting in early 2020 planning for a strong year ahead when they were shocked at the news that Prime Minister Scott Morrison was telling Australians to come home.

From then on, says Thornton, they worked around the clock, shutting down tours, getting stranded travellers home and dealing with requests for refunds.

“It was very challenging, as borders around the world were shutting overnight.”

It was the start of a horror year which saw the company suffer a $22m loss in 2020, halve its global workforce and stop its global operations.

“It was definitely our darkest hour,” he says.

Thornton says the company was able to use the time to improve some of its digital operations and attract a minority investor, French family travel company Genairgy, which became a minority shareholder in 2021 and obtain its certification as a sustainable “B Corp.”

Last year saw global travel start to re open in the first half, particularly in the US and Europe, and Australians starting to head overseas again in significant numbers in the second half.

The end of 2022 saw signs of a pick up in Australian travel with Intrepid enjoying a record sales month in November.

“2022 was the year we took the company from survival mode back into revival mode,” he says.

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The company began to expand its footprint through acquisitions, taking over US based trekking company Wildland Trekking and buying a majority interest in Australian tourism business JOOB.

It also bought a 50 per cent interest in low impact South Australian based accommodation start up, CABN which offers “off the grid” self contained accommodation.

Thornton says Intrepid’s executives watched in amazement in November and early December as sales continued to grow day by day.

On Saturday December 3, it saw its best ever booking day of $6.1m.

“We had been watching the bookings grow, day by day, from $3m a day to $4m to $5m,” he recalls.

“Then we sold $6.1m on December 3. It was amazing.”

The momentum has continued this year with more travellers looking for new destinations.

The company did $58.7m in sales in January this year – beating its last January record of $53m in January 2020.

In February — a short month – it clocked up another $58.9m in sales.

“Having the two biggest booking months in our history gives us huge confidence that travel is back,” he says.

“Intrepid is well placed to take advantage of that consumer desire to have great experiences and to travel with sustainable travel companies.”

New destinations or revived older one include trekking in the kingdoms of Bhutan and Nepal and trips to Pakistan.

The company is just completing its first season travelling to Antarctica.

Thornton says the company is focusing on three core demographics – first time travellers, single professional women who are looking for safe, well organised travel packages and Baby Boomers.

Thornton says the revival of overseas travel in Australia last year came six to nine months after the opening up in the US and Europe.

He says Asia has proved one of the slowest areas to open up with China only just allowing its citizens to start travelling overseas on holidays.

He says the high price of airfares meant that the initial travel out of Australia last year was by people wanting to see family and friends they had not been able to see because of the pandemic.

This year, he says, travel bookings from Australia are expected to be given a further boost with airfares expected to come down as global airlines add more capacity this year.

He says the low Australian dollar, particularly against the US dollar, is seeing Australians prefer to travel in Europe than the US which is proving expensive.

“Australians are heading out for the northern summer to places like Italy, Croatia, Greece and Spain.”

“The US hasn’t come back at the same level because of the exchange rate.”

He says Australians are looking for new destinations “off the beaten track” attracted by new images on social media.

He says 2023 could see more acquisitions by Intrepid, particularly in the area of lower cost accommodation.

“We are looking at lodges and smaller accommodation in some of the core areas we operate in,” he says.

Thornton says the company is focusing on three core demographics – first time travellers, single professional women who are looking for safe, well organised travel packages and Baby Boomers.

“People who are in their 50s and 60s. Their kids have left home and they want to get out and have new experiences,” he said.

“We can provide different levels of trips to suit each group,” he says.