Go Next
Go Next is a family-owned company with 40 years of experience in land and cruise travel, but most of its departures today are “definitely on the cruise side,” said Anita Root, director of product development.
Go Next saw the Mediterranean rebound this year and into 2018 after a range of geopolitical events, including echoes of Greece’s monetary crisis and recent terrorist activity in the region, caused the cruise sector to become a bit depressed. However, both the eastern and western Mediterranean have rebounded, and there’s a resurgence of travelers wanting to cruise there.
“The customers are resilient,” Root said. “There’s a little bit of apprehension for a moment, then things get resettled; and that’s the new norm.”
Go Next partners with Oceania Cruises, which no longer offers trips that begin or end in Turkey because of unrest there.
“We’re anxious to go back there when they feel the time is right, but I know for ’17 and ’18, they’ve eliminated Turkey as a beginning or ending point,” Root said.
Root believes that travelers want the culturally immersive programs Go Next offers, but that returning to the ship every night may give them an extra layer of security.
“People are quite resilient, and their desire for exploring is still there,” she said. “Maybe one destination isn’t quite as attractive, but there’s still a series of other destinations to go to.”
Scandinavia and the Baltic states still have a lot of interest, and new this year, Oceania is offering a cruise that circumnavigates Ireland. Go Next’s new partnership with Scenic Cruise Lines will offer four or five European river cruises in 2018 on the Danube, Bordeaux, Rhine and Moselle rivers.
Collette
Collette can pinpoint to the day whether international incidents have affected bookings, and looking back at the last couple of years, there seems to be a bit of a pattern.
“We’re seeing a shift right now from some of the Paris [and] London [trips] to Scotland and Ireland,” said public relations manager Amelia Sugerman. “It’s starting to seem like people — not that they’re afraid — but they might be more comfortable going to those areas.”
In addition to a surge in travel to Scotland and Ireland, Collette’s numbers for Croatia are huge and expected to grow. Collette led its first tour to Croatia in 2013, and the Discover Croatia itinerary features the coastline of the Adriatic Sea all the way from the northern area across from Venice, Italy, to the white-stone walls of Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Collette also had to double the number of departures to Iceland this year “just because of how many people wanted to go,” Sugerman said. The company now offers two different itineraries in Iceland to cater to travelers’ interests. Collette has been offering the Iceland’s Magical Northern Lights tour and this year added the Icelandic Adventure itinerary on its small-group Explorations line, with the first departures in 2018.
Collette is also seeing a shift in the types of products people are choosing. Collette’s Spotlights product allows travelers to stay in a single hotel in a single destination — like the Spotlight on Tuscany tour, which is growing — while enjoying both guided excursions and free time.
“We’re seeing a trend in people who want to go to a place they’ve never been to or have been to before but want to go back and explore more in depth with a tour guide,” Sugerman said.
Mayflower Tours
John Stachnik founded Mayflower Tours with his wife, Mary, in 1979, and they have seen many changes over the past nearly four decades. And they’ve seen a lot of changes even in the past several years.
As unfortunate as it is, “since what has happened with the onslaught of terrorist attacks, people have become desensitized to them; it doesn’t affect travel like it did five years ago,” he said.
Travelers have become more worldly, and “they do know it’s OK to travel,” Stachnik said. What affects international travel more is when uncontrollable events occur, for example, when volcanoes erupted in Iceland and disrupted air service to half of Europe.
But when it comes to isolated attacks or incidents, “the people’s attitude is, ‘I’ve wanted to do this my whole life, and I’m not going to let a bunch of cutthroats stop me.’”
Although Mayflower has been going to Egypt for 25 years, “it’s a stop-and-start love story” for the company. When an issue or challenge arises, Mayflower may take Egypt off the table for two or three years, and then resume trips to the country. Travel there is now thriving.
“Interestingly enough, we have filled up our Egypt tours,” Stachnik said. “It’s got its challenges, and we’re very, very aware of them, and there are safety issues. But people want to go.”
Croatia wasn’t even on Mayflower’s radar until three years ago when the company started traveling there. In addition to Dubrovnik’s being a major film location for HBO’s “Game of Thrones” series, “they have a shoreline to die for” on the Adriatic coast, Stachnik said. But, most importantly, it’s a new destination for most travelers.
Iceland has been booming for several years; Mayflower started leading Iceland tours last year and regularly fills up its trips. Stachnik thinks it will stay strong for at least a few more years.
In South America, Mayflower has several programs that do “very well no matter what,” such as Ecuador paired with the Galapagos Islands. Peru is perennially popular because “everyone has been wanting to be up on Machu Picchu,” he said.
