Q&A with Contiki CEO Casper Urhammer

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to run a global tourism business? We did it. So, we sat down with Casper Urhammer, CEO of Contiki Vacations. The company is part of The Travel Corporation, the family of brands that also includes Insight Vacations, Trafalgar, The Red Carnation Hotel Collection, and Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection. Contiki specializes in tours for travelers between 18 and 35 years old.

Prior to assuming this role in September 2014, Urhammer was Managing Director of Groupon Australia and New Zealand and a co-founder of Groupon Denmark.

He’s also a world traveler, a certainly useful trait in his current performance. He has lived all over the world, launching businesses in the tech field. And Urhammer’s adventurous spirit (he’s an avid skydiver) gives him something in common with the millennial demo that he must achieve.

Born and raised in Denmark, Urhammer holds a degree in international trade. He lives in Geneva, but spoke to About.com at the Travel Corp. headquarters in Anaheim, CA.

Contiki’s creed is #NOREGRETS. It is a philosophy that certainly applies to Urhammer.

Q: You haven’t been at work for a long time. What are your impressions?

A: This is a very well run business. Nothing is broken. Nothing needs to be repaired. We are doing well.We are taking something in great shape and making sure it keeps growing. We are fortunate to have the demographics that we do. Everyone talks about millennials these days. We have been working with them before it was great. We have been doing this for 53 years. Our mission as a group is to catch them, nurture them until they are 35 years old, and then hand them over to our other brands. It is incredibly important to stay relevant.

Q: Does your experience in the tech space help you?

A: The execution and delivery of the product is low-tech, but very good. There is a lot of experience and knowledge in this company. There are synergies, of course, with being part of a larger company that owns the value chain. People come to work for the Travel Corporation and stay for a lifetime.

All the things that I bring on board from a digital environment, it’s about translating that into something relevant to this demographic. We are looking at things like the tools that Millennials use. Everything we are doing is customer-centric. We have had the same website for eight years. We are renovating it. We have done a lot of research on how we will change it. We will make it easier for people to explore whether Contiki is the right choice for them. We are completely changing technology. It will be released in early 2016.

Q: Millennials do everything on their phones these days, right?

A: Yes, which is why we are actually creating mobile devices first. It is much easier to enlarge things for a computer screen than it does the opposite. We are also updating our application. It will become a chat source, you can chat before, after and during a tour with other travelers. You can chat with people who will be on your same journey. You have access to the itinerary, you will know the weather. The main objective will be to keep in touch with those who travel.

Q: What about travelers who are even younger than millennials? Are you anticipating what is relevant to them?

A: It’s not just about millennials. Generation Y is coming around the corner. Therefore, we must ensure that the platform lasts for five to ten years. But it also has to be agile and flexible enough to satisfy what the next generation will want. At this stage, I have no idea what it can be.

Q: How have marketing strategies evolved to reach potential customers?

A: Gone are the days when you could put up a paper ad and wait for the phone to ring. So are the days when you can simply send out brochures. We are doing content-based marketing. We produce content. We work with influential people like the famous You Tubers. Last year we worked with one of the stars of Game of Thrones to tell a story on video and we distributed that video. That becomes content that young people can relate to. It is an interesting way for young people to learn about us. Instill brand confidence.

This is how we market our product today.

Q: So you’re saying that traditional advertising doesn’t work for you anymore?

A: We are content driven and that can be user generated content. Social networks, videos, music. It is an incredibly interesting space. The distribution we have is incredible. As an example, we do something once a year called The Road Trip. We carry around ten famous You Tubers with us. Some of them have millions of followers. One million views on YouTube is the same as a television series on Bravo. It is a great distribution.

We bring influencers from all over the world. We give them a fantastic experience. They post videos and we get double-digit million views. That’s our way of reaching people and telling the Contiki story.

Q: What other content do you produce?

A: We produce 20-25 videos annually. We are working with very cool guys who have a show on MTV. It’s called The Buried Life . There are 100 things to do before you die. They have played basketball with Obama. We arranged for them to have a beer with Prince Harry in London. That’s what the TV show is about, young boys with an appetite for life. It is a perfect brand for us. We take them around Europe with the winners of a competition called The Epic Bucket List. We had tens of thousands of entries.

We passed through Egypt and Europe. We spent an absolute fortune to give these young people the best time of their lives. Imagine taking five people on the journey of their dreams with their heroes that they are used to seeing on television. For us, that is good marketing. Also, we ended up with a great video on the way. Those videos are on our YouTube channel, it’s on the influencer channels. We spend a lot of money growing it, pushing it to consumers through various channels. We spend most of our marketing budget on that.

Q: How effective is that type of marketing? Do you have a way to quantify it?

A: These days, digital is about math. If you show so many videos, you will know how many will click on the website. Everything is mathematical. That’s 2015 marketing. But we are not using technology just for the sake of technology. It’s about giving people a better understanding of Contiki.

Q: So you’re not buying magazine ads anymore?

A: If you mean travel magazine ads, we are not doing too much. We are primarily focused on the consumer and online. Things you can click to access our website. However, brochures are traditional in our industry. They are still very valuable to us. The average age of our clients in the United States is 27 years old. At that point in their life, when they go on a trip with us, it is probably the biggest investment they have ever made. The brochure is the validation that what they are doing with their money is worth it. They will show it to their friends and discuss it, take notes.

The brochure is incredibly important. We have to be on the ball every year.

Q: Give us an idea of how extensive Contiki’s operations are.

A: We have operations in 55 countries. We have sales teams in seven. We have digital, marketing and operations teams. The entire business reports to the directors and presidents and then to myself. I have very smart people who are experts at what they do. It is definitely a global business. I live in Geneva and I travel 200 days a year. Towards the end of Europe’s workday, the United States stands up. And when America goes to sleep, Australia wakes up. Everything works quite well. To date, we are up eight percent, flirting with nine percent.

In terms of real numbers, that is substantial.

Q: Where are Millennials traveling these days?

A: We have a program called Japan Unrivaled. That has gained popularity like you don’t believe it. It’s a hot spot for millennials. You have to take a tour there and we have the perfect program for it.

Surfing and surfing is also incredibly popular for us. We have cruises in Europe and Asia, I joined a sailing tour of Croatia. It was great to see the Game of Thrones locations and see the dolphins leaping through the water. We have about ten boats that we charter there. They are very comfortable and have approximately fifty passengers.

Q: Contiki introduced the Travel Styles concept last year. Is that proving successful?

A: it is really good. What we struggle to do before is diversify. We did not want to be classified into a single segment because we have 300 different trips. Travel Styles is a good way to explain it. It really helped us position ourselves. Some categories are more popular than others. Cruising and high energy are two examples. But not everyone wants to get up early and stay up late at night. People want different things. That is why travel styles were introduced.

Q: What about the new tours? Is it important to develop them?

A: We are not inventing many new things. Some of these tours haven’t changed since the early 80’s. They already do the right thing. They go to the right places. We are very lucky and blessed. We have some amazing deals. We have worked with some partners since the company started. Sometimes it is the second or third generation of the same family that works with us. We have some incredibly strong relationships, especially in Europe. That is our oldest and largest program. It can’t be beat.

Q: So the things you look for between 18 and 35 haven’t changed in half a century?

A: In fact they have. But the Eiffel Tower is still cool. We go to the popular destinations to see the most popular places. That still works. We may have changed some of the restaurants along the way and certainly market it differently. Some of the options have changed. We didn’t take cruises fifty years ago. We have certainly evolved. But the core of what we do and what we see remains the same. The formula for people, fun and experiences remains the same.

Q: Do Europeans want to see the same things as North Americans?

A: The world is becoming a smaller place. For the traveler, this provides the opportunity to experience things that years ago would have been incredibly difficult. We started out doing European tours. That is the basis of Contiki. But today, we also have tours of Asia. You can go island hopping in Thailand. We have tours in Latin America. Not long ago, I was in Peru. I did the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. This year, we have a license to do the four-day Inca Trail.

Q: Tell us about the Inca Trail.

A: it is primitive. It is what you would expect. I did the one-day version. When you walk the Inca Trail, you generally do it in groups. There are so many animals they hear you coming and they hide. I decided to run the trail. I was able to move so fast that the animals didn’t have a chance to hide. I saw the most amazing things. Birds you couldn’t even imagine. I saw brown bears standing up. You just run around them. I saw red raccoons. It was a great way to experience it.

Q: It seems like you are trying to experience as many tours as possible.

A: Whenever I can, I go on a tour. It is very important to stay in tune with travelers in their twenties. I tell people who I am. They are usually quite curious on the first day or so. But after a day they couldn’t care less. I go to the bar and order a drink and sometimes people come to chat. It’s a lovely moment.

Q: Have you learned a lot from getting to know your customers?

A: Yes, and it started on my first day on the job. I joined a tour in London and traveled with them for a couple of days. I met a lovely young woman from Arizona. She was literally the first person I spoke to. I asked him what his motivation was for making the trip. She said, ‘Casper, I’m the first in my family to leave America. I had a burning desire to take this trip. It has not been easy because I do not come from a rich family. I work on a subway and I’ve been taking all my money and putting aside everything I can.

It took me four years. I even ate too much tube and gained a couple of pounds. But I did it.

Can you imagine how humiliating it was? I will always have her on my mind. Having that as the first experience really was a gift. My biggest responsibility is to make sure that each and every traveler going on tour has the best time of their life.

Q: What about repetition and group business?

A: It happens a lot. But mostly we see people traveling alone. More than half the business, actually. It is the perfect product for that. It really stimulates the group feeling when you are on tour. Everyone can have a good time, whether they go as a couple or alone. As for our demographic, there is a natural limitation to repeat business. There is an element of that. We would love to increase it.

We find that first-time or second-time travelers come to us and gain confidence. We educate them to become travelers. Maybe the third or fourth time, they will go alone. Sometimes they make lifelong travel friends on Contiki tours.

Our tours are not expanding that much. The main drive will stay fresh. The philosophy that I want to bring is a concept that I call the baseline of delight. You want to make sure all your brand touch points are above the baseline. Uber is very good at it. When he comes the car is clean. The driver wears a suit. He takes good care of you. He e-mails you a receipt. Those touchpoints are great.

We have several points of contact, such as our website and our app; call centers, tour managers. We have to be above the baseline in all of them. We need to find the points where we could fall next and fix things. For example, we found that the place where we started our tours in London is not good enough. It does not convey the brand. So, we are changing things. We want to be Red Bull, Apple or Go Pro of the industry. In addition to technology, we are updating our brand so that every time you interact with our brand, it is a delight.

Q: Do you plan to contact more travel agents to sell Contiki?

A: We are always looking for more business partners. We still do trade shows. All the consortia we work with in one way or another. Small or large, I am interested in all of them. They are very important to us. I want to make sure I am close to them and support them. Our US market has been larger than it is today and we want to get that business back.

We have some plans to make it easier for agents to get to know Contiki. Right now we trust our very good team of sales executives. We cannot reach everyone. Some people also have to communicate with us. Agents can come to us and we will tell them exactly what to do. Those of us who want to work with millennials, we accept them. Some of the most successful salespeople are in their 50s and 60s. I just met some agents who have sold over 100 Contiki tours to date. Imagine their commissions.

It is not a low price item.