podcast - Contours

Heather works at Contours, a travel agent specializing in Latin America. She designs itineraries based on clients' preferences and budgets. Technology has changed the industry, allowing for faster communication and research. Social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook are used for marketing and reaching a wider audience. Heather believes travel agents are still needed for niche destinations like South America, as there are many logistics and choices to consider. Instagram destinations can be deceiving, and travel agents provide authentic recommendations based on personal experience. ChatGTP and online algorithms lack accuracy and personal connection. Contours uses social media to showcase their expertise and promote lesser-known destinations in Latin America. Okay, so it's on. So, hi Heather, welcome to the pod, thanks for joining me. No problem, I'm very happy to be here. Great, so you work at Contours, which is a travel agent in Melbourne. Can you tell me about your typical day? So Contours is a tour operator, which essentially means that we work with both travel agencies and also with the general public. And we specialize only in Latin America. So typically, either a client or a travel agent will call us, wanting us to put together a package for the public. They give us a time frame, a budget, a wish list, and then we design an itinerary based around those sort of parameters. Typically, a lot of my job involves emailing the suppliers, emailing the client or the travel agent, kind of connecting itineraries, researching products and destinations, etc., etc. Nice, and Contours has been around since 1975. Yes. And you've worked there since 2007. Yes. So how, like there's obviously been some bumps and blips that have happened over the years. But I guess, what are the main things from a technology and digital media perspective that you've seen change in that time? So when I started at Contours in 2007, we were still writing actual physical airline tickets. My goodness. Which I might have to think about. So, yeah, the industry has changed a hell of a lot in a very short space of time. Obviously, the Internet has had a huge impact on the travel industry, both in a negative and a positive way. We now have much greater access to information. We're able to contact suppliers in real time. We can have Zoom meetings with people over in South America. And get updates very quickly. But conversely, it also means that clients have a much steeper expectation in terms of turn around on quotes. They're also able to do their own research and compare with products online. So there's a positive and a negative aspect to the whole Internet thing. In terms of reach and marketing, we used to put ads in the newspaper. We had a PR person who would generate articles to try and put into the age traveler section, for example, the Good Weekend to try and spark interest. Whereas now we have, yeah, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all those sort of social media platforms. So we can reach the audience in a much more immediate and direct way. EDMs as well. I mean, we have a database of clients and agents so that we can really filter down through the various demographics by state, by age group, by interest, whether they've traveled with us before or not. Particular destinations they might be interested in and kind of really tailors marketing much more specifically than they ever could before. Yeah, nice, because I guess, yeah, more people are online. And some of the articles I was reading, one in particular was saying that prospective travelers are more and more relying on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. And so there's a lot of consumers who don't pick a destination until they've seen it on one of those social media platforms. So do we actually need travel agents anymore? Like what's the case for why we need people like yourself and that sort of bricks and mortar approach to booking travel or exploring where you want to travel? Yeah, it's a good question. And I think because I work with such a niche destination, there is still a huge call for travel agents. Because South America is logistically very challenging. There's always a lot of moving parts to any itinerary. There's lots of flights, there's trains, there's transfers. There's ticketing which has to be done in advance for things like Machu Picchu. And there's an overwhelming amount of choice for many things as well. So for the Galapagos Islands, we have something like 88 boats operating. There's 15 different islands you can visit. There's different seasons, there's different reasons for going to different islands. And frankly, it just becomes a little bit too much hard work for most people. So that's where we sort of step in and can offer really honest, first-hand experience from having been there ourselves. And the reasons why you might choose a particular vessel over another, or why you might choose a land-based itinerary. There is also, social media is great because it does let you explore new destinations very easily. But there's always a degree of culture that comes across through Instagram as well. So Rainbow Mountain in Peru is probably a really good example. That's a destination that has come up massively since Instagram took off. It's a very picturesque location. When you see it on Instagram, it typically has a number of layers of filters and saturations and color hue, vibrancy increased on it. So people have a really unrealistic expectation of what they're going to see. So I know when someone mentions Rainbow Mountain to me first off, they've seen it on Instagram 100%, and I feel like my job is to explain to people, okay, you're going to people a month of the year, the sun won't be shining, the colors aren't going to pop, it's not going to look like how you've seen it on social media. And to actually save people spending, A, a lot of money, B, a very big day out of Cusco, and also the fact that you're going up to over 5,000 meters above sea level, it's a full-on day, and that doesn't come across across the beautiful Instagram social media site. Yeah, it's interesting you say that, because I think for me personally, I'm really skeptical around those Instagram destinations, because I have actually been that person who's got their own sort of thought, what's all the fuss about? Really, this is it, a little bit of disappointment. So yeah, I guess that's a great thing to have specialists who, you travel to these places as well, right? So you've got that authenticity and that legitimacy around your recommendations to people. Yeah, I mean, even things like ChatGPP, which is a big concern in the travel industry at the moment, because you can put some very specific parameters into ChatGPP, and it will scour TripAdvisor, Restaurant Reviews, Hotel Reviews, Booking.com, all that sort of thing, and put together a 15-day itinerary for you in the same way that I would. But I've done the exercise a couple of times, and there's still, at the end of the day, it's an algorithm, it's a machine. And there are still many inaccuracies, because it's simply pulling things from the Internet, and it has no way of telling you, or of knowing itself whether these things are true or not, whether there's inherent bias built into some of the opinions that are being posted, which of course there is. And at the end of the day, I mean, maybe that's quite old-fashioned, but I think there's still something really nice about having a connection with a client or an agent, understanding what these people are looking for, and being able to say, hey, based on my personal experience, I've done this, I've seen this, I think that you're going to really love it, rather than a machine kind of pulling it out with an algorithm. Yeah, 100%, and it's also, you're traveling from Australia, like it's a long trip, it's expensive, you want to do it justice when you're there. So yeah, I can see why travel agents in this regard would still be relevant. Yeah, I mean, so much of what's online as well, particularly around the whole chat.gtb thing, Australia is a very small proportion of the world in terms of population and in terms of our presence on the Internet. So many of the recommendations that you're pulling from chat.gtb are very much focused around what the American market might want, because there's 300 million Americans and they're much more digitally active and present online than we are, so we don't always want the same things. The Australian market has very different expectations and wants budget timeframes to what Americans would want, so that's also something to consider. Yeah, and I mean, you've got your own social media accounts, which I've been following, and they're quite active, there's lots of content regularly, so Instagram and Facebook, is that right? Yeah, we do also have a LinkedIn profile, but that's probably our least active at this point. Yeah, and so what's the strategy around showcasing your work and getting people to book or to make an inquiry with Contours? Yeah, so I guess prior to COVID, we had a dedicated marketing person, which unfortunately, in the post-COVID world, we do not at this point, although we are looking to outsource that fairly soon. So strategically, we've probably been a little bit lacking in that sense, but ideally, the aim is really to position Contours as a leader in terms of our knowledge, in terms of our understanding of South America, promoting destinations that aren't necessarily top of mind. So we try not to put too much up there about Machu Picchu or the Galapagos Islands, and destinations that really don't need that kind of push, but to show lesser known parts of Latin America that people might not have heard of. We also try our best to show our team's expertise, so as often as we can, we put up posts that relate to our own personal travel, any travel we do for conferences and things like that, so that people can see that we really do know what we're talking about, because we spend several months a year there between staff that work at Contours. And we also try and reflect the experiences that our clients have as well, so whether we're posting just short excerpts and testimonials. Very often, clients will send photos to us whilst they're traveling, we often share those as well, so that it gives a bit of humanness to the whole account, because anybody can pick pretty photos of the destination, that's quite easy. So yeah, it's kind of a, I guess, sort of a three-pronged approach between showcasing our knowledge, showcasing our expertise, and also showcasing the experience that our clients have when they travel as well. Yeah, I mean, I think that that is a strategy, I guess it's showcasing your expertise, different locations that are not sort of the most popular ones, and doing it in a really authentic, natural way by incorporating clients. So that's quite a nice touch. You mentioned print ads and stories, so outside of social media, what other digital media are you utilizing? Or even TikTok, right, is that on your radar? Because that seems to be something that, yeah, people are a bit hesitant, but it has actually, it can have a really strong impact. And again, into a new audience as well, and a younger audience that might be on those platforms and interested in traveling to Latin America. Yeah, so TikTok, unfortunately, I personally, I just don't think I have the skills, really, to put together anything that goes onto TikTok. But the vast majority of our clients are and always have been in the 60 to 69 age bracket, followed by 50 to 69. Over 70s have actually been creeping up quite a bit as well in the last couple of years. The 40 to 49 and 30 to 39 is a very small portion of our business. And I was actually, I pulled the numbers just before we had this conversation, just to have a look, but I feel like there's been increasing in number, though it's not sure actually. They remain pretty static at about maybe like 8, 10% of our total business. So while there is definitely room to grow and to aim more at that demographic, at the end of the day, older people have more time because they're retired, they've got more money, obviously, because of where they are in their lives. And they're probably a little bit more comfortable with outsourcing, you know, the planning and everything to somebody like myself. Yeah. And they're not on TikTok, right? And they're definitely not on TikTok. I mean, look at, you know, Facebook is by far and away, you know, I think we've got 3,500 followers on Facebook and we've got a fraction of that even on Instagram. So Facebook is definitely the number one sort of aim for us. Really what we're trying to do is to get people to pick up the phone and call us. So we're never going to convert a sale by having an ad on Instagram or advertising the discounted cruise or something like that. It's just not the way the market works. So for us, it's really more about being front of mind when people think about South America and, you know, potentially being interested enough in something that we post that they will pick up the phone and want to know more about it. Yeah, cool. And you get a lot of, like, repeat business, repeat clients. Yeah, so I think the system that we use now, we've only had in place since about 2015 or so. So we don't really have the ability to drill down too deeply. But I think our best repeat clients have travelled with us about seven times. Wow, that's pretty awesome. Yeah. And I guess that's, you know, so getting people and convincing them about value even when they're in their, you know, 30s or 40s is great because then, you know, they do have multiple trips that they might take over their lifetime. But South America's a big place, so there is lots and lots of room for repeat clientele, you know, people who've been to South America and then who want to go to Mexico and Central America. So yeah, there's definitely lots of room for growing your repeat business. All right. Awesome. Is there anything else you want to add? We've covered a lot. No, I guess, you know, we're just very much trying to explore new ways of getting the name out there because we're such a small business, it can be really hard to sort of find space amongst all of the companies that have much bigger budgets and bigger reach. But yeah, so we're contouring the 750 next year, which is a good opportunity for us to make a lot of noise around that. So we're investing in a press fan trip this November. So we've invited a journalist who writes for a number of publications here in Australia to travel to Ecuador at our expense, sort of travel with my colleagues who live in Buenos Aires. And so that's a way of kind of, you know, you might pay $5,000 for an ad in a newspaper or whatever it is these days, probably a lot more. Whereas, you know, I think it's costing us maybe $10,000 to send this guy to Ecuador for three and a half weeks. He's going to come back and produce six or seven plus articles for various publications in Australia. And that really, well, hopefully that will have a lot of impact. Because print media still does play a role for the demographics we work with. And obviously those articles will be circulated online as well. So yeah, hopefully that will have a positive impact. Awesome. I hope so too. And yeah, it's good that, you know, there's a lot of industries that haven't survived or weathered the pandemic or have, you know, really been impacted and disrupted heavily by consumers moving more of their spending online and their decisions online. So it's good that, yeah, a brand and a local business in Melbourne is still able to survive and has a positive future ahead. Absolutely. Yeah. And that was a really, I guess, interesting thing to come out of COVID as well. Many of our competitors who, you know, companies who don't necessarily work only with Latin America, but who work with a number of niche destinations, you know, many people ask us, oh, why didn't you start selling Australia when the pandemic was on? You know, you could have, you know, tours to La Rue or tours to the Kimberley or something. And it was like, well, that's, we've been doing what we've been doing for 40 something years. And it's, you're kind of trashing your own brand if you suddenly turn around and say, oh, look, now we're experts in Australia. I mean, I'm Australian, but I don't know the country half as well as I know South America. So, yeah, I think having a very tight focus and staying true to what you do well is certainly, well, hopefully part of our success. Lovely. Awesome. Well, thanks for taking the time to chat with me and... Pleasure. Best of luck with everything. Thanks. Cheers. Bye. Bye. Thanks.