Travel Leaders Franchise Group recently announced a partnership and certification program with the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA), and the groups are also promoting the program as an expansion opportunity for luxury travel advisors.
While adventure travel runs the gamut of sectors, the number of activity-based trips combined with luxury accommodations is on the rise, as upscale travelers increasingly rank experience as their top priority.
That’s one of the reasons Perry Lungmus, Travel Leaders Franchise Group’s vice president of luxury, says he pursued the partnership.
“It seemed ripe now to visit the active and adventure travel space and try to get special training,” he said. "It’s not just about serving the current audience, but growing.”
According to the ATTA’s 2014 Industry Snapshot, the average age for active and adventure travelers is 48, the average trip length is 8.7 days and the average trip price per day is $477. That means the average active and adventure traveler spends nearly $4,200 per trip.
ATTA President Shannon Stowell says many adventure travelers are seeking guided adventure by day, with comfort by night.
Under the partnership, he said, the agents will learn about the adventure-travel industry and its breadth of options.
Stowell says adventure travel is a $263 billion industry that encompasses everything from extreme mountain trekking to family ski vacations.
Under the new partnership, agents can become certified after completing a special course. But they are also encouraged to attend the ATTA's meetings.
Lungmus said he has been working to establish the partnership for about two years. It is part of Travel Leaders’ increased focus on expanding opportunities for agents in the luxury space.
In that vein, Travel Leaders Group this week announced that its luxury hotel program, Select Hotels & Resorts, has grown to more than 850 properties, a 90% increase since its launch two years ago. Almost half of those are exclusive to the Travel Leaders program, the group said.
Hotels in the program must provide guests with amenities like complimentary breakfast for two daily, early check-in and late checkout when available, upgrades and more. They are required to provide a guaranteed commission to eligible agents.
This story has been updated to clarify that the Travel Leaders/ATTA partnership and Travel Leaders Luxury Travel Center of Excellence headed by Perry Lungmus are both part of Travel Leaders Franchise Group. Meanwhile, the Select Hotels & Resorts program is from the larger Travel Leaders Group. The relationships were swapped in an earlier version.