Lion World Tours, a TravCorp company, has launched an auction feature on its website where customers can bid for vacations to Southern and Eastern Africa, making it perhaps the first tour operator to get into the travel auction game.
"We basically started the auction site as a viral marketing idea," said Lucille Sive, president of the Toronto-based Lion Tours, which specializes in Africa tours and safaris. "We have fantastic deals on our website, but unless you get people onto our site, they just don't know about it. Then we realized that there was definitely a market for auctions in this economy."
Lion Tours kicked off its first auction in June with two itineraries. The bidding process ran for 10 days, said Sive. In total, 19 people bid on one of the itineraries, and 18 on the other.
As an example, bidding for a seven-night South Africa itinerary, including three nights at the Table Bay Hotel in Cape Town, four nights on the Lion Sands Game Reserve and roundtrip airfare, started at $2,800; the itinerary ultimately sold for $4,900, for two people. The same trip normally would cost more than $10,000, Sive said.
There was no advertised "minimum price" above the starting bid.
Sive said that how Lion Tours arrives at the initial bidding price is confidential. But she added that maintaining profitability on the auctioned itineraries is "not an issue," as Lion Tours has "very good buying power" with its suppliers.
On July 6, Lion Tours started a second round of bidding on an additional two itineraries, and bidding closed on July 15. Lion Tours plans to continue the auction program for "as long as it is needed," said Sive.
While there are plenty of travel auction sites, such as Priceline, SkyAuction and LuxuryLink, this might be a first for a tour operator auctioning off its own inventory.
"There's no one who does specifically Africa as a package," said Sive.
Lion Tours said it would pay an agent a referral fee if they send a client to the auction site to book. She added the auction site has driven traffic to Lion Tours' other products, which are commissionable.