Anderson Vacations
Anderson Vacations runs trips all over Canada, showcasing the staggering and diverse beauty of our northern neighbor. Some of the country’s most famous areas, such as the Canadian Rockies, are time-tested group destinations. But Anderson has found interest in providing an experience that would have seemed out of place on a group tour even a decade ago: outdoor adventure.
“There are more groups wanting more activities and options now,” said Jim Warren, business development manager at Anderson Vacations. “When we’re at Maligne Lake in Jasper, there’s a great trail that runs the length of the river. The traditional tours do a six- or 10-minute walk along one little section of the trail. But we’re finding groups now that want a three-hour hike there, with a guide who will give them the history of the canyon.”
Warren said he is seeing similar requests for canoeing expeditions on Emerald Lake, “instead of just having an ice cream cone and taking a picture.” In Kelowna, British Columbia, Anderson Vacation groups are taking two- and three-hour guided bike tours through the picturesque Okanagan Valley.
As a result of this kind of demand, the company has created a program called The Road Less Taken, which travels on less-trafficked roads and affords more time for hiking and wildlife-watching.
The company is also responding to the rising interest in culinary experiences with an inventive program called Flavors of Quebec.
“Outside of the city, there’s an area called Charlevoix, where there are over 200 retired gourmet French chefs,” Warren said. “They’ve developed a thing called the Flavor Trail, which we love. We break our tours into smaller groups of about 10 people and spend a whole day in the area. A chef comes, takes people to a marketplace, buys beautiful ingredients and creates a dinner menu. You can go to the chef’s home, prepare the meal and then sit down and have dinner with the chef and his friends.”
Mayflower Tours
Over the course of its 36-year history, Mayflower Tours has grown from running motorcoach trips around the Midwestern United States to offering fully escorted travel to destinations around the world. In 2009, the company seized on a growing travel trend by launching a river cruise division.
“We started chartering the ships so that we could run the cruises our way,” said Nish Patel, Mayflower’s chief operating officer. “We added things to the cruises that others don’t. We have a business manager on board our ships who can take care of cabin changes, flight delays, lost bags or missed tours right on the spot.”
Those business mangers include staffers like Patel himself and others from within Mayflower, as well as retired tourism veterans such as Bruce Beckham and Lisa Simon. In addition to solving customer problems, the managers are tasked with providing extra touches that make the trip memorable, such as buying small gifts for passengers in each port visited.
The company has also focused on adding some “life enriching” experience to its river cruises to set them apart from other trips.
“We have a program on the Amazon, where we take our travelers on little boats and go piranha fishing,” Patel said. “If they catch one, we take a picture, and then we bring it back on the ship and cook it. Who else can say they’ve caught a piranha and eaten it?”
Mayflower has brought some of these concepts to its land tours as well. In Italy, which has been a staple destination for years, new itineraries take advantage of high-speed train service.
“Americans love the high-speed trains because we don’t get that much here,” Patel said. “So we fly people into Venice, and then they take a high-speed train to Florence. After a few nights, they take a high-speed train to Rome. We’re taking the train instead of taking coaches, and it has made a real difference.”
