How 2 Tour Operator Players Embraced the Pandemic Upheaval

The biggest crisis ever to hit the travel industry provided one of the biggest companies in the tour operator sector the opportunity to come out a stronger corporation.

That's the message Ulla Heffer Böhler, chief operating officer for the Travel Corporation, said that her company's chairman and founder Stanley Tollman told staff prior to his passing in 2021. Speaking at Skift Europe Forum on Thursday, Böhler said TTC, which has several tour operators under its umbrella, was forced to reevaluate everything as a company, most notably its domestic offerings.

"When we realized Australians wouldn't be going anywhere anywhere soon," Böhler said in conversation with Skift Senior Travel Tech Editor Sean O'Neill. "We said, 'We have such a large following of guests in Australia. Why don't we bring them tried-and-trusted Insight Vacations quality to Australia?"

"In normal times, it takes about a year to launch a new domestic product. We knew we didn't have that luxury of time. So we pulled together very quickly a domestic program in Australia."

In addition, the pandemic forced the TTC to take another look at group sizes.

"You have customers always asking, 'How big is the group I'm going to be in?'" Böhler said.

"So we very quickly again launched (trips with) different group sizes. It's something normally we would have planned long in advance. And we just did it really quickly because we needed to it."

Meanwhile, Travis Pittman, the CEO & co-founder of TourRadar, also agreed the innovation has been great for tour operators. He's had to do similar things at this company.

"Prior to Covid, we were very much focused on business-to-consumer model, and getting the multi-day adventures sold online," Pittman. "As the pandemic hit, we looked at what we can do to help the whole industry come out stronger as well."

So TourRadar launched an adventure booking platform with a business-to-consumer element, its core business, but also with a business-to-business element.

"We had travel agents using TourRadar before, which had never focused on."

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