Gay tour operator Atlantis Events acquired
longtime competitor RSVP Vacations from gay media company PlanetOut
earlier this month. Travel Weekly Destinations Editor Kenneth
Kiesnoski spoke with Atlantis CEO Rich Campbell about plans for
RSVP and the potential impact of the merger on the gay travel
market.
Travel
Weekly:You've been quoted as saying that the merger
of Atlantis and RSVP should have happened a long time
ago.
Campbell: We'd had early talks about
combining the two companies and creating one very strong,
multibranded company instead of two.
There are a lot of
efficiencies in running two companies like that, in terms of
marketing and so forth.
We've always
thought it made a fair amount of sense, but we never came to an
agreement.
The situation [at
RSVP] obviously changed under PlanetOut's leadership. An
opportunity presented itself rather nicely for us.
TW:Has RSVP had difficulty competing
since its acquisition by PlanetOut last year?
Campbell: That's pretty evident, from the
[number of] trips they're running. I don't really want to comment
further.
TW:A former co-owner of RSVP, Charlie
Rounds, is returning as its new president. He sees the Atlantis
acquisition as a good opportunity to differentiate the
products.
Campbell: That's always been our
perspective. It's going to be really tough for me to articulate the
specifics at this time because we're still researching and trying
to figure out what the key factors are going to be.
It's always been
about style over substance. At the core, RSVP and Atlantis do the
same thing, just as Royal Caribbean and Princess Cruises do the
same thing. Yet passengers have a different experience on each
because of the little details, in terms of entertainment programs,
ship hardware, etc.
We're going to keep
RSVP the same in many ways, and even elaborate on the differences
[with Atlantis]. We're going to keep a lot of things RSVP clients
hold dear; we're going to try to improve upon them, such as by
enhancing the types of entertainment we bring onboard.
There's also going
to be more focus on the community [at both brands] in the future.
That's something RSVP has always been very good at.
We also plan on
keeping the two brands, initially and probably for the foreseeable
future, on different cruise lines. It would make no sense to be
running two brands on the same line.
The clientele are
somewhat different. I think it would take a small book rather than
a newspaper article to describe the differences because they're
subtle.
It's just going to
be another option for gay travelers, like difference between going
to Province-town, Mass., or Fire Island, N.Y., for the weekend.
They're different experiences.
TW:Will RSVP and Atlantis be in
different price categories?
Campbell: I think you will see a price
differential between the two. It doesn't mean one will always be
cheaper. It's going to vary by itinerary, routing and ship
availability.
[The merger] gives
us access to a broader range of prices overall. But I don't ever
want one brand to be perceived as a bargain or less expensive. But
we've never really been in the premium business. We're
middle-market with both brands.
TW:RSVP always claimed to attract more
female clients than Atlantis, saying that up to 25% of its
customers were women. Do you see the merger as improving your
position in the lesbian travel market?
Campbell: It's hard to say. I've never been
able to confirm those numbers, although I've heard them
anecdotally. There may be more appeal for women in the RSVP brand.
That would actually make some intuitive sense to me. It's more
gender-neutral; I think Atlantis has always been very
male-focused.
TW:When the acquisition was announced,
RSVP was offering just three 2008 cruise charters, two of them on
smaller ships. Will you be rolling out more RSVP-branded
products?
Campbell: We'd like to add at least one
more trip for their 2008 schedule, and we're working on 2009 right
now.
TW:Will RSVP be offering any resort
vacations?
Campbell: I think we're going to keep the
land product with Atlantis. Our land trips are doing better than
ever. We're going to have two weeks at our Puerto Vallarta resort
[Oct. 27 to Nov. 3 and Nov. 3 to 10]. They're 95% and 90% sold out.
And we're back at Club Med in Cancun [April 26 to May 3], and
that's selling extraordinarily well, running 70% above
plan.
TW:Cancun doesn't have a strong image
as a gay-lesbian destination.
Campbell: I don't think it matters. We've
done Cancun for years. We started it in 1993. We began with Club
Med back in 1990; it's our longest-running vendor relationship. A
resort's just like a cruise ship; we're chartering the property and
what matters is the fact that we have it.
Cancun is very
gay-friendly, as is most of Mexico. It doesn't have the
[gay-oriented] infrastructure Vallarta has, but it's a great
destination. It's certainly not a place you're going to find any
hostility.
TW:Will the acquisition have any
impact on your relations with the trade?
Campbell: RSVP traditionally has had a very
strong relationship with its agent partners. I'm not sure they kept
up the sales energy they had in their earlier years, but now we've
got double the number of people serving the travel agent community.
I think you're going to see significant improvements to our service
levels.
We're working on
some very straightforward things, such as dedicated travel agent
sales lines, a single point of reservations contact for both brands
and easier access to inventory information. We're doing a lot of
enhancements to make it easier for agents to sell both brands
because we can now use technology and our sales force a lot more
effectively.
Most of those
things you'll see implemented in the first quarter of 2008. The
goal is to substantially improve our travel agency relations and
sales volume within both brands.
TW:There may be advantages to a
merger, such as efficiencies of scale, but you now lack
competition, apart from Olivia and its women-focused product. Can a
combined Atlantis-RSVP excel without true competition in its
segment?
Campbell: There are multiple points of
competition. We really are going to run these as two distinctive
brands. RSVP is going to compete against Atlantis. We're still
going to fight for each other's customers, just like we used
to.
More importantly,
we've always seen our competition as every other vacation option
available. Gay travelers don't have to come on gay vacations. They
come because [gay vacations] excel in entertainment, itinerary,
ships, quality, social experience and value.
If those things are
not outstanding, there's no reason to take a gay vacation. Why
would you spend any money, much less a premium, to go on an all-gay
holiday when it's an inferior product?
To
contact Destinations editor Kenneth Kiesnoski, send e-mail to [email protected].