Targeting Youth Travel

PHOTO: Melissa da Silva, president of Contiki.

While still a young woman who heads a youth travel company, Melissa da Silva has more than 20 years experience in the travel industry. The California native traveled with Contiki as a college student. After graduating, she worked 17 years with STA Travel in the U.S. and the U.K. In 2013, she was appointed president of Contiki by its parent company, the Travel Corporation.

What is the most exciting news from Contiki?

For us, the most exciting thing in last couple months is that we launched our new travel styles. The one thing we really recognized is that no two travelers are the same. So we introduced, with the launch of our summer Europe brochure, eight unique travel styles. So whether it’s culture packed at museums or iconic sites, or maybe favoring local cuisine or experiencing epic nightlife, we really have something for everybody now. The reason we launched these new styles was to make it easier for both the travel agent and the traveler to find that perfect trip.

Is dividing your product line into eight styles new?

Correct. Historically, we could categorize our trips in terms of the accommodation style. But when you are planning your own travels, the first thing you think about is the experience you want. We really tried to align our trip styles in a way that mirrored that planning process. Then once the travelers found that perfect style, they then had the four different accommodation types they could choose from.

In categorizing the trip styles, were you able to take the trips as they were and put them into the categories?

For the most part, with a few modifications. We’ve not made any fundamental changes to the product, we’ve just made it easier to identify what that product is. We haven’t changed what’s at the core of any of our trips. They’re still for 18- to 35- year olds. That’s all we do. They’re still packed full of those premium inclusions you can’t get if you’re traveling independently. And of course we’ve continued to build in as much “Me” time as possible, so that those young millennial travelers can really make that trip their own unique experience.

But you do have ongoing changes?

Yes, we’re always evolving the product. We introduced the eight styles with the launch of Summer Europe, but as of last month, all of our other regions across the world had all adopted the same travel styles. And now when you go on our site it’s very easy to search for the travel style you’re looking for regardless of where you want to travel. It makes it so much easier for the agent to say, “Oh yeah, that’s where my customer belongs.”

What are the eight styles?

Our most popular out of the U.S. is what we call our Discovery Plus. We call it the “see it all do it all”. It’s where you are seeing all the icons. Then we have our High Energy trips, fast paced, with culture filled days and epic party-filled nights. Then we’ve got our In-Depth Explorer, our regional trips for people who really want to get to the heart of that region they are visiting. Then there are the Easy Pace trips, for people who want to relax a little more.

That’s four. What’s next?

Then we have sailing and cruising. They are slow paced and have the maximum of me time, a lot of free time for them to do what they want to do. Number six is Winter and Ski, including the winter Christmas markets. Then we have our festivals and short stays, a wide range all over the world of music festivals and classic favorites like Oktoberfest, which is big one for us. And then we have camping, and that’s where Contiki’s roots are. We started with camping trips. We don’t sell a lot of camping trips out of the U.S., but we do sell some. These are for people who really want to get up close and personal with nature. They want to stretch their dollar and spend as much time as possible. We only have camping in Europe.

What kind of response are you seeing?

I can’t say it’s a direct result, but I do think this has made it a lot simpler for them to identify the perfect trip for their customer. What we’ve seen so far for 2015 bookings is that agency sales are up more than 30 percent over 2014. So I hope that this is part of that.