Converting challenges into opportunities
After two days of speeches, networking, gastronomy, fire jumping and forest bathing, it’s time to reflect on ATTA Elevate Europe in the Catalan Pyrenees to see if adventure travel is well positioned to weather the global storm or not.
The pre-summit day of adventure was a great icebreaker for the main event, with attendees engaging in activities from hiking, mountaineering and rafting to nature walks. I opted for the mindful experience of ‘baño de bosque’, aka forest bathing which was highly immersive.
With the host community of Val d’Aran looking to diversify into a year-round destination and disperse visitors away from key flashpoints like Barcelona, the conference theme was ‘The Art of Balance’ with the aim of creating better tourism. In a highly competitive market, advantage is gained through true authenticity which Catalonia has in abundance especially with two official languages – Aranese and Catalan. With the region looking for high value, low impact tourism, adventure travel is a natural fit, delivering much higher levels of equitable tourism with 75% of tourism spending staying locally, according to ATTA.
Taking lessons from Peru, destinations are moving from sustainable to regenerative tourism which offers slow, sensory and deeply human experiences such as releasing turtles into the wild in the Amazon.
The event kicked off with operators talking about the challenges and opportunities in the adventure travel space. Paul Easto, Founder of Wilderness Group proposed that we should reframe growth in a positive light, suggesting a per annum increase of 20% in value terms considering inflation accounts for 5%. However, this goal for organic growth of that level did not resonate with all operators with some advising more cautious growth ambitions.
A challenge that the sector is facing is an ageing demographic with the typical adventure traveller tending to be Gen X or older. Yann Wülser of Altaï (a company recently acquired by Intrepid Travel as its biggest acquisition to date) advised targeting new younger consumers with closer to home experiences and a lower price point, as well as extending the season which will help over-tourism and achieve lower prices – a win win.
In terms of AI, which was on everyone’s minds, Easto provided some reassurance that AI would be hard-pressed to replicate experiential guided travel. As Eric Blachford, investor and ex-Expedia CEO said, you wouldn’t trust AI with organising a rafting trip.
Adventure travel – if it can appeal to a younger demographic and continue to harness natural and cultural authenticity – is well positioned to adapt and thrive despite more challenges ahead. The AI accelerator led by Jason Reckers, CoOwn and Adventure Commons, is a sign of how the adventure travel community comes together to support each-other in their hour of need, tackling transformation head on with an incubator, test and learn approach just as was done with Tomorrow’s Air with climate action.