Adventure South

“We just love John Key and his cycleway initiative!” laughs Adventure South boss Geoff Gabites, who says forward bookings for his company’s cycling programmes for the summer season are up 20% on last year off a strong base.

“We are absolutely excited about the proposed national cycleway,” says Geoff Gabites. “We can’t wait to have new product to offer. And for the distribution sector, cycling tours could provide a new market.”

Adventure South offers visitors an exciting range of outdoor activities, including cycling tours, hiking trips and “remarkable adventures”, a collection of multi-activity adventure tours.

Cycling is presently its strongest programme, with special departures driving that growth.

“Specials – where travellers customise their own group itinerary and departure dates – are hard to do and time consuming,” explains Geoff, “but they provide a huge diversity of trips for our guides, and visitors usually commit early.”

He says markets vary according to the product – the US is strong for road cycle tours, New Zealand and Australia favour the Otago Central Rail Trail. The UK is significantly weaker this year, which he says is a loss as they provide bookings on some of Adventure South’s longer cycling trips.

“Our most popular route has to be the Otago Central Rail Trail in terms of the number and quality of clients.  We reconnect with our domestic market who are so excited about getting on a cycle again they can’t wait for the next trip.”

Adventure South has learned you can’t stop innovating, says Geoff. “New products are slow and expensive to bring to market and gain momentum, so at any one time we have three to four projects under development to ensure we always have something new coming on. You always have to keep reinventing and focus on your bottom line.”

www.advsouth.co.nz