Where are you located?
We are based in Melbourne as our hub here in Australia but have representatives across the country. We are part of the larger Camps International Group of companies which has offices in UK and Dubai, and our on the ground operations around the globe.
Brief summary of your business?
Camps is a tour operator that delivers life enhancing and educational travel experiences for thousands of young people across the world. We build camps with local people on land that we buy or lease from communities. Our camps are located in spectacular areas of cultural and environmental diversity. We employ and train hundreds of people in rural areas where there is little or no employment and shape all our experiences to contribute to community development, wildlife and environmental conservation.
Which destinations do you specialise in?
We have 3 main geographical regions in which we operate – SE Asia, East Africa and Latin America.
What are the advantages to your business as a SETO member?
Being an organisation that deals almost predominantly with schools, we are quite a niche market. We operate between the lines of education and tourism, and up to now have always felt on the margins of both areas. SETO brings together all similar operators, enabling us to have a presence at a higher level hopefully helping with policy development and travel guidelines, helping schools to make informed decisions towards working with reputable providers.
What have been the greatest challenges to your business in 2022?
The main challenge for 2022 has been gauging when to kick start our activity, and hence our cost base, post covid. We have had to hunker down for the past 2 years to get through covid, and like many other tourism industries, we are only now starting to see a re-bound. Schools are generally risk averse and so there remains a reticence to travel and commit.
Consumer travel forecasts, where are your customers enquiring to travel?
For those that are starting to think about future plans, it's mainly our Asia experiences and not until travel in late 2023 and beyond. Schools are literally just starting to consider their options now and there remains a lot of confusion within schools as to whether they are permitted to travel yet.
How has your business changed and adapted since the global pandemic hit?
We have definitely shrunk in size like every other tourism operation, and our systems have become more flexible. In particular, we are more focused on remote meetings with clients as opposed to face to face. This was something we were considering in any case to reduce our carbon footprint, so covid has accelerated us to a more flexible and less travel heavy operation for our sales team. This has coincided with a general acceptance globally of the benefit of video calls, of course.
Looking forward what are you excited about over the next 12 months?
It's really about getting back to normal business, welcoming new clients and teams to the benefits of travel. We have already had our first post covid teams in our camps around the globe in July this year, so now it’s a case of filling the order book to be able to sustain the activity. But being able to start to grow the team again and sell is what we really hanker for.
Rory Hall - Director Asia Pacific at Camps International Limited
