G Adventures’ New Domestic Tours Answer ‘Huge Appetite’ for All Things Canadian
“Simply put, our agents asked for more Canadian tours, and we’ve delivered,” Green told Travel Market Report Canada.
G Adventures’ Managing Director, Canada David Green is passionate about the product, and his adopted country.
G Adventures managing director for Canada David Green says the company’s nine new Canadian tours are the result of “a huge appetite for all things Canadian right now.”
“Simply put, our agents asked for more Canadian tours, and we’ve delivered,” Green told Travel Market Report Canada.
“We’ve had agents ask for more Canadian trips for a while now, but it’s safe to say that in the last 4-6 months that ask was getting louder and louder from our Canadian agent community. We believe that our new tours will suit the needs of both our local Canadian market, as well as our international market who are looking for alternatives to travelling to the U.S. right now.”
Green notes that before this launch G Adventures offered 14 itineraries that visited or took place completely in Canada. “Now we have 23. It’s our biggest Canadian expansion ever. Not only that, but we’ve added new styles like a marine expedition that allows travellers to experience different coastlines, and we’ve opened up new G Adventures routes in Quebec and the Maritimes.”
Launching nine new tours at once is a major undertaking. But as more and more requests came in for Canadian tours, G challenged its product staff to move quickly.
“We could see that momentum was growing so we challenged our product team to grow our Canadian product offerings and have those ready for launch by Canada Day. We are an agent led business and our agent community were crying out for us to create more Canadian products. The thing about G Adventures is that we still consider ourselves as a 35 year start up. So we always rise to the challenge and the opportunities that present themselves to us.”
Green acknowledges there’s an element of risk to the expansion of Canadian tours. “I think this is going to be an interesting experiment to see how many Canadians will join our new Canadian tours. In the past, whilst we’ve always wanted to expand our range of tours we were hesitant to do so as we weren’t entirely sure that the local demand was there.”
He also knows that for many travel advisors, selling Canada to Canadians has not been a priority, partly because many Canadian travel companies employ a direct-sell approach and don’t have strong ties to the trade. But Green believes the time is right.
“Unlike many other operators we’ve always had an agent first philosophy to how we sell our tours. Everything we do starts and ends with our travel agents in mind and we’re all-in on working together to show off Canada. We’re all aware there’s been a huge rally cry to support Canadian businesses and communities in response to the U.S. tariffs so we’re jumping on that momentum.”
Green wasn’t born in Canada – as his Scottish accent attests – but he has been welcomed here, especially by the travel community, and he wants to share his gratitude.
“We’ve recently launched our ‘Born In Canada’ campaign, and as part of that we’ve been giving away badges and pins to our Canadian agents that say ‘Born In Canada.’ I too am proudly wearing those badges, and it’s been quite the talking point as people challenge my Scottish accent reminding me that I wasn’t actually born in Canada in a very jestful way!”
On the eve of Canada Day, Green has a strong message about why the world needs more Canada. “It’s a country that genuinely changes lives through travel, just as it changed mine. Canada is renowned for its friendliness, and in a time when the world is seeing more division, it’s also a time for us as proud Canadians to stand up, to open our arms and invite more of the world to experience Canada for all its natural beauty and our Canadian spirit.”
