Intrepid Travel

Intrepid Travel is a small group adventure travel company. Intrepid offers over 500 trips to around 100 destinations in Asia, Latin America, North America, Europe, The Middle East, Africa, Australasia and The Pacific.

Intrepid trips are designed to let travelers experience the world at the grassroots level: traveling largely on public transport, trying local food and staying in locally owned accommodation or even with Overland, Special Groups, OUT Adventures, Urban Adventures and Volunteering.

Their focus is on environmentally, culturally and socially responsible tourism (ecotourism).Most Intrepid trips have a maximum of 12 travelers and the average group size is 10 people. This reduces the impacts of their trips and enhances the experience of their travelers. Intrepid has also stated that it will become a carbon neutral company by the end of 2009, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from their offices and trips where possible and offsetting the rest.

History

In 1988, Darrell Wade and Geoff Manchester traveled with a group of friends across the Sahara in a converted tipper truck. It was during this trip that the two university friends developed the idea for a style of travel that would take small groups of people to travel at the grassroots level, meeting local people, trying local food, staying anywhere and everywhere and traveling predominantly by local transport. These trips would expose travelers to the real world as they travelled among the locals rather than just as tourists looking in.

In 1989 Wade and Manchester returned to Melbourne, Victoria, bought a second-hand typewriter, borrowed a dining room table, and Intrepid Travel was born. Geoff led the first trips in their only destination, Thailand, while Darrell looked after the 'head office'. In its first year of operations the company had 47 passengers.

Since its small beginnings, Intrepid Travel has grown into a major, multi-national company. Employing 800 people in 96 countries, the company has grown to have a turnover of $130 million. Much of the growth occurring in the last ten years, the company had to come up with new strategies to deal with the problems of the decade - September 11, the 2002 Bali bombings and SARS. Expanding to Europe, Africa and South America, to give the company a broader and thus more stable base than relying solely on Asia as their destination, the company grew rapidly. Acquiring and partnering with other companies also lead to Intrepid's increased stability, 23 companies now being a part of the extended Intrepid Travel network.

Recent events

Between 2005 and 2007 Intrepid opened offshore operating companies in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Kenya, Ecuador and Peru. The role of these offshore companies is to provide local employment opportunities, make greater use of local knowledge and help Intrepid better identify community and environmental impacts of their trips. In February 2008 a representative office was set up in Beijing to run operations in and out of China.

2005 saw the introduction of "Family Adventures", trips specifically targeted at parents and their children. This style of trip allows one or numerous families to be lead through one of a number of countries, with an experienced tour leader to ensure safety and security. In 2006 Comfort and Active trip styles were introduced in the official brochure. The comfort trip, marketed as "real like experiences" with a "softer landing", includes transport and accommodation of a generally higher standard than "Original" Intrepid adventures. Active trips are, unsurprisingly, targeted at Intrepid's more active clientele; focusing on bike rides and hikes through unfamiliar, amazing terrain.

In 2005 Intrepid opened its first retail store on Bourke Street, Melbourne. Since then they have opened stores in London, Sydney, Auckland, Toronto, Brisbane and Perth.

Intrepid Travel embarked on its first major acquisition in mid-2006, buying the UK based adventure travel company, Guerba. This gain allowed Intrepid to make further in roads into the UK outbound market, as well as inbound tourism in Africa - a continent previously untouched by Intrepid operations. While Guerba still runs operations, it is 100% owned and controlled by Intrepid Travel.

Responsible Tourism

The Environment

In an effort to publicize the effects of global warming, Intrepid actively encouraged the community to view the Al Gore film An Inconvenient Truth, when it was released in late 2006. To do this, Intrepid Travel offered to reimburse up to 10,000 tickets, a gesture which could potentially have cost up to $150,000. The CEO, Darrell Wade, was quoted in saying that "it was an emotional commitment more than anything else."

As part of their plan to become a carbon neutral company by the end of 2009, On January 1, 2007 Intrepid introduced compulsory carbon offset payments to all flights sold from Australia.

The Intrepid Foundation

In 2002 Intrepid established The Intrepid Foundation to increase the financial support given by Intrepid and their travellers to not-for-profit community projects around the world. Intrepid matches public donations dollar for dollar, encouraging its passengers to give generously. Since its inception The Intrepid Foundation has disbursed AU$1.1 million. Currently it supports 20 grassroots projects and 10 international non-government organizations working with communities in Intrepid destinations around the world.

Plan (aid organisation) is one of the Intrepid Foundation's major partners. As Plan's longest corporate partner, Intrepid has shown continuing support over the years, particularly in the wake of the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004. First on the phone to Plan, Intrepid Travel initiated an appeal in 24 hours, leading to $200,000 of relief money being raised. Also donating several trips for fundraising appeals, Intrepid Travel has helped Plan to continue to operate around the world.

In April 2007, Intrepid launched an African tree planting campaign, aiming to plant 12,000 trees by the end of the month. For each person who registered on www.intrepidtravel.com/africatrees, Intrepid pledged to plant one tree. To further encourage travellers to register on the site, the company also offered 10% off trips to Africa for those who did so.

Awards

* 2007 Winner Environmentally Responsible Tourism Small Tour Operator category, British Travel Awards
* 2007 Winner of the PATA (Pacific Asia Travel Association) Gold Award for Corporate Environmental Programme
* 2007 Best Green Specialist Tour Operator, Tourism Authority of Thailand Green Awards
* 2007 Highly Commended, Conservation and Cultural Heritage, Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards
* 2006 Overall Joint Winner, Best Tour Operator, First Choice Responsible Tourism Awards
* 2006 Runner up, Tourism for Tomorrow Awards
* 2002 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award (Darrell Wade and Geoff Manchester)

From http://en.wikipedia.org/

H.I.S.

H.I.S. Co., Ltd. (株式会社エイチ・アイ・エス?, TYO: 9603) is a travel agency based in Tokyo, Japan, specializing in low-cost package tours to various countries. The company was founded as International Tours Co., Ltd. in 1980 by Hideo Sawada, born in 1951, and renamed "H.I.S." in 1990.

Within Japan H.I.S. has 227 branches located throughout the country plus a global network of 68 branches in 57 countries. H.I.S. holds a majority stake in Orion Tour and a minority stake in Skymark Airlines. It also owns two hotels in Australia, one called Watermark Hotel and Spa on the Gold Coast QLD and one in Brisbane Named Watermark Hotel Brisbane and a cruise company called Cruise Planet.

Hideo Sawada recently bought an interest in a Mongolian agricultural bank called XAAN and believes Japanese tourism to Mongolia will increase.

The H.I.S. head office is located in the Shinjuku section of Tokyo.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/

General Sales Agent

A General Sales Agent (GSA) is a sales representative for an airline in a specific country or region. Typically, the GSA is responsible for selling all products of the airline in its region which includes flight tickets and cargo space.

When an airline selects a GSA as its sales representative for a region, as opposed to opening its own branch, it generally does so for economic reasons or because the GSA has historical ties with travel and cargo agents which will be too time-consuming for the airline to build itself.

The GSA receives a commission of around 3% to 5% on all tickets and unit of cargo space sold in the region that it represents.

All costs related to running the GSA's business are the responsibility of the GSA including but not limited to insurance , rent , general office expenses and any travel within the country or region needed to promote /sell the product .

From http://en.wikipedia.org/

Flight Centre

Flight Centre Limited is Australia's largest travel agent. It is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange with a market capitalisation of $1.145 billion as at March 2006. It has over 1500 stores in nine different countries with over 8000 staff.

History

Flight Centre was founded by Graham Turner in 1981. Turner had previously run a successful budget bus trip company in Europe called Topdeck. Turner retains 18% of Flight Centre. By 1990, Flight Centre had opened stores in New Zealand, the UK and US. The UK and US offices were closed in 1991 in the face of the Gulf War. Expansion began again with a move to South Africa in 1994, Canada in early 1995, and the UK later that year. US operations recommenced in late 1999 It has been claimed that

"Flight Centre revolutionised the retailing of international air-travel in Australia by shifting to a model where profitability was driven by volume rather than margins. Initially they built a price advantage by bypassing ticketing wholesalers, seeking out less well-known airlines, and also by arbitraging price differentials across markets."

The company grew rapidly, establishing different brands to cater for different parts of the travel market. It owns FCm Travel Solutions for the corporate market,Student Flights, Overseas Working Holidays for the student market and also runs related businesses in the discount holiday organiser Escape Travel, travelthere.com, quickbeds.com, luxury holiday company Travel Associates, retail cruise specialist Cruiseabout and Campus Travel aimed at the academic and university markets. Its website flightcentre.com has been the most popular Australian travel agency website for several years. It has operations in Australia ($4.4 billion 2004/5 sales), New Zealand ($639 million 2004/5 total transactions), South Africa ($365 million 2004/5 total transactions), United Kingdom ($909 million 2004/5 total transactions), United States ($65 million 2004/5 total transactions) and Canada ($415 million 2004/5 total transactions).

After decades of rapid and consistent growth in revenues and profits, Flight Centre flew into trouble in 2005 with its first ever decline in annual profit. For the year ending June 30 2005, on a total revenue of $6.9 billion, its net profit was $67.9 million. Profit announcements for the half year ending December 31 2005, showed a continuing fall in net profits to $33.6 million, a decline of 7.7% on the previous year.

It followed Graham Turner's departure from day-to-day operations when he stood aside from being Chief Executive Officer in 2002, allowing a senior manager Shane Flynn to replace him. He corrected this in July 2005, resuming his previous role as a hands-on manager as Executive Chairman.

The one time darling of the stock market, normally showing strong profit growth, was punished severely with it being the second worst performing stock in the Australian Stock Exchange's Top 200 companies. Its share price is down 57% from its peak in 2002. This reflected not only concerns about the company's management but also its long-term prospects.

The company faces serious challenges, with disintermediation occurring in the travel industry. In 2006, Qantas announced that it would no longer pay base commissions to travel agents for domestic and New Zealand flights and that it would reduce international commissions from 7% to 5%. An increasing number of customers are following the lead of many of Flight Centre's suppliers and dealing with them directly through their own websites rather than going through travel agents. Some financial analysts are very concerned about this, with one issuing a sell recommendation on the stock in a report titled Flightless Centre.

In November 2006 a company associated with the founders and a private equity firm is offering $17.20 a share (and somewhat less to current "controlling" shareholders) to take Flight Centre back into private hands. In February 2007 the privatisation of Flight Centre failed when investment bank Lazard rejected the deal even though the majority of minority shareholders agreed with the privatisation bid. Flight Centre shares tumbled soon after the trading halt was lifted to around $15. The company's share price continued to fall during the 08/09 financial crisis and in March 2009 is trading below $3.

Australian representative athlete Troy de Haas has been employed by Flight Centre Ltd since 2007. In 2008, Flight Centre acquired GOGO Worldwide Vacations, a travel wholesaler with more than 40 locations in the U.S. and in Canada.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/

Fareportal

Fareportal, Inc. is an online travel agency that provides travel technology, travel business process outsourcing, ticket fulfillment, and call center solutions to the online travel industry. It offers self booking tools, such as web fares, consolidator, contracts database, profile management system, travel reports, private negotiated fares, and hotel and car information.

The Fareportal proprietary technology was developed in-house, with net-fare databases that are unique to the travel industry. It has multiple reporting features and a sophisticated online tracking system that assists in targeted online marketing. Fareportal technology is built on the .NET Framework portal. The technology also includes features that allow complex markups, discounts, opaque fares and auto ticketing, and enhances fulfillment of air, car and hotel reservations.

A key element of the Fareportal Technology is the ability to integrate with each of the leading Global Distribution Systems, Sabre, Galileo CRS and Amadeus CRS, for airline, car rental, and hotel reservations.

Brands operated by Fareportal:
CheapOair
CheapOstay

From http://en.wikipedia.org/