PHOTO: Ben Perlo joined G Adventures last September. (Photo courtesy of G Adventures)
It's a big job, trying to bring a product into the U.S. market, but Ben Perlo, G Adventures' new U.S. managing director, is having a lot of fun doing it.
G Adventures, then known as Gap Adventures, entered the U.S. market in 2010, 20 years after its founding in 1990 by Bruce Poon Tip in Toronto. The product was always available for purchase by Americans, but it was not until 2010 that the company decided to try to make a concerted push into the U.S. market.
Though G Adventures is just unveiling Perlo now, he has actually been on the job since last September, making preliminary moves to establish the company's plan of attack. His first couple of months have been low profile, just getting into the nuts and bolts of the business.
"I've been through a whirlwind," said Perlo. "The first couple of weeks I went on one of the products, so I could learn the product and understand how we deliver our product. Since then I've been going to all the major shows through December: LTX, Traveleaders, Signature, the New York Times Show and Boston Travel. I've spent a lot of time meeting the key people at these agencies as well as being on the road with some of my team meeting a lot of the agencies."
A New Model
Perlo has been in the travel industry seven years. He was formerly senior vice president with Vantage Deluxe World Travel. Before that he worked for four years with Overseas Adventure Travel.
Both Vantage and OAT do business in a consumer direct sales model. G Adventures works in the travel agency distribution network. Perlo said working with the retail distribution network was one of the reasons he made the move.
"There were many things about G Adventures that appealed to me," said Perlo, "first what the company stands for, what it believes in. But secondly was being able to expand my knowledge base and enter into the agent side.
"I had always thought while I was at those two companies that we were missing a large chunk of business by just going direct to consumer and not expanding our sales platform to include agents because they bring a lot to the table. It's a great distribution channel. That's really why I focused in on this role. I had a couple of opportunities to work for direct-to-consumer brands and I wanted a more well-rounded experience, one that includes the agent side of the business."
Utilizing the travel agency network is beneficial to operators, said Perlo, just as travel agents are beneficial to their clients. "They know the market, they know the deals in the market and they know the products," he said. "They are quick and they react quickly. They know the marketplace, and they have their hands on the pulse of it. It's a little like using a real estate agent. Without them a lot of things can be messed up."
Targeting the U.S. Market
G Adventures already has a network of sales people throughout the U.S. region. Perlo intends to fill the position of director of sales soon, in a new Boston office that G is establishing as its U.S. headquarters.
"We're expecting to grow that office into a large office, more than we have today in our Rhode Island office," said Perlo.
The U.S. market has grown since 2010, but it still only accounts for maybe 15-20 percent of the company's business. The U.S. market ranks fourth among G's international markets, after the U.K., Europe and Australia/New Zealand.
Perlo believes the U.S. market has such growth potential that G's U.S. division could overtake the other three in sales volume.
The marketing approach in the U.S. must be different than the approach in Canada, Perlo said. "The Canadian market knows G, not so much the U.S."
The company is making progress in building brand awareness in the U.S., Perlo said, which is the first part of the U.S. campaign. The second part, operating in parallel with the first, is the training of agents after they do gain brand awareness.
"Our strategy is to continue to invest in our outside sales team for educating and training the agencies that are selling us, and trying to form relationships with others," said Perlo
The Right Side of History
Penetrating the largest and most competitive market in the world is not easy for any company. Trying to penetrate the consciousness of the most advertising-saturated market in the world is a huge public relations challenge. But G has some particular advantages in its attempt. G's most primary advantage is being on the right side of history. The travel world, if not the world itself, is becoming increasingly like G Adventures.
What G offers, what used to be called adventure travel, is increasingly becoming the way people want to travel in general. Adventure travel companies created the model for experiential travel long before the phrase became common parlance in the travel industry.
Today nearly all tour operators are marketing themselves as providers of experiential travel. G Adventures has the advantage of being in that sweet spot just as the world's spotlight moves in its direction.
G also has the advantage of being a strong advocate and practitioner of sustainable travel for decades. As sustainable travel evolves from being just a nice gesture to being an urgent necessity, G Adventures is already in that space.
More than anything else it is the company's core values that sell the company, and what commands the loyalty and enthusiasm of its employees as well as its customers.
"Core values - we're big on that," said Perlo. "It is a great company, and it's amazing to see, just coming in and being new how much you embrace it and how much fun you have with the culture. The camaraderie throughout the company is amazing. It's been an amazing experience."
G's style of adventure travel sells itself. "It's fun to sell and you have fun selling it," said Perlo.
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