How is Audley Travel embracing technology while continuing to provide unique and responsible holiday experiences?
Don’t underfund your technology projects, plan carefully, involve your team from the beginning to ensure what you implement matches your business’ needs, and select third-party partners who really understand your business.
CEO at Audley Travel
Founded in 1996 with a goal to offer tailormade holidays providing more immersive in-country experiences, Audley Travel now has offices in the UK and the US and over 900 employees. From going off the beaten track on an African safari to being pampered at a luxury beach resort in Thailand, Audley Travel caters to a diverse range of travel requirements and offers luxury holidays in more than 100 countries.
We speak to CEO Nick Longman about new market opportunities, transformative technology, responsible travel, and more.
“Our model is to offer a very different type of trip, focusing on helping travellers to really connect with a country, its culture, and its people. This includes using local guides, local suppliers, and locally owned accommodation – which also means more money stays within the local communities,” says Nick. Audley Travel chooses not to sell its holiday packages directly online.
Instead, country specialists – equipped with first-hand local knowledge – have in-depth conversations with each customer to ensure they design the trip suited to their unique needs. Nick sees this end-to-end, highly personal service as integral to success:
We think it’s important that each customer has a single point of contact – the country specialist with whom they have their initial meeting – who organises their trip, deals with any potential issues while they’re away, and checks in with them when they’re home. We don’t want our customers getting lost in call centres.
CEO at Audley Travel
Audley Travel prides itself on finding ‘off the beaten track’ things to do. “This focuses on activities that are a little different and are less likely to be in a ‘top ten things to do’ destination guide,” Nick explains. He believes the tailormade holiday market is still fairly immature, and has huge growth potential: “There’s lots of room for us to expand, particularly in the US, with younger age groups and the younger family market. And we’re adding cruise options to some of our trips, based on demand.”
The company has also recently added a new service to its portfolio, the Audley Private Concierge: “This is a managed service for frequent travellers who are looking for a higher level of personalised service.
Over the longer term, Nick plans to further internationalise the business by entering more overseas source markets.
“Responsible travel has always been at the heart of what we do, from ensuring revenue stays within local destination communities to offering our clients carbon offsets,” Nick explains. “ESG regulations and requirements are now helping us to co-ordinate our efforts, and broaden what we do.”
To help strengthen the organisation’s commitment to responsible travel, the company decided to apply for BCorp certification. Nick says that while it initially felt like a daunting process, the team quickly realised they were already doing lots of the necessary activities – the challenge lay in being able to evidence them. “We had to demonstrate what we do in a more formal way – and as it’s an ongoing thing, we’ll get re-tested every three years on how we’re progressing against our objectives.” Nick believes a sustainable holiday doesn’t need to cost more than any other holiday.
A good travel company should be able to offer a sustainable holiday without customers having to specify that they’re willing to pay more for it. The best thing to do is to give your customers choice so they can decide what’s right for them.
CEO at Audley Travel
Nick explains that Audley Travel has been on an extensive technology journey over the past five years: “Technology is key to our ability to scale. As part of this, we’ve moved all our previously somewhat disparate systems and physical servers into the cloud and implemented a new reservation system.”
He says the next step is a new enterprise and finance system. “Barclays has been integrally involved with this project. The team’s ongoing support and excellent communication throughout the integration has been instrumental to ensuring a successful implementation.”
With over 50% of revenue coming from repeat business, Audley Travel prides itself on its excellent customer service, so any technology implemented must support this.
“Whether it’s a new finance system, a customer-facing app or AI, technology is simply another way in which we can enhance our customer touchpoints,” explains Nick.
Although initially concerned about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the business, Nick now believes it offers many opportunities, and Audley Travel is running several ‘proof of concepts’ with an external provider to see where it can be of most benefit
However, despite being open to adopting cutting-edge technologies, Nick is wary of introducing too much change too quickly. To ensure the success of each implementation, the company sets up internal teams consisting of a mix of technology experts and subject matter experts from across the business. These teams help to plan and manage the implementation, ensuring that the new system is fit for purpose.
“By marrying the analogue side of our business with AI, we should be able to deliver efficiencies. We think the biggest wins will be at the front-end, on the sales side of our business, so that’s what we’re currently focusing on.” says Nick.
“We always remember that our clients are the most important part of our business. So we’re very focused on making sure we really look after them and deliver on what we promise. If we get that right, they’ll be a customer for life.”
“We work hard to look after our own people. The travel industry lost lots of talent during the pandemic. We’re now very focused on improving how we communicate with our employees, ensuring we’re helping to develop their skills and career opportunities.”
“We never lose sight of product – we’re always thinking about what our customers want, what’s going to be the next big thing, and what else we can do to ensure they have a great trip. This also helps ensure they ask us to plan their next trip.”
Working with Barclays
We provide Audley Travel with their full operational banking requirements and we are also a lender in the groups loan facilities. “Barclays has been by our side throughout our growth journey, supporting us with our cash management, liquidity and foreign exchange requirements. The team helped us to facilitate the option to expand internationally and is now playing an integral role in formulating our ESG KPIs.” says Nick.
During the pandemic I discovered the importance of a business partnership as opposed to a transactional relationship – working with businesses that will be there during the bad times as well as the good – and Barclays is a true business partner.
CEO at Audley Travel
We provide a complete spectrum of solutions to enable your business to transact and trade easily, manage risks efficiently and finance its plans for growth.
To discuss your business requirements and how Barclays can support you, contact us today.
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