3 U.K. Tour & Cruise Companies Asking North American Advisors to Give them a Chance

North American travel advisors have plenty of tour and cruise companies to choose from for their clients. But there’s always room for more and now three traditionally U.K.-based companies are seeking to be part of those choices.

Journeysmiths, Swan Hellenic and Specialist Journeys have all recently made efforts to court North American travel advisors. Travel Market Report reached out to all three to find out what makes them different and why North American advisors should give them a chance.

JOURNEYSMITHS (Laura Burdett-Munns, managing director)
Founded in 1990, Journeysmiths began with customized African holidays, but has since expanded to 25 countries across five continents. All tours are built around the concept that travel should inspire personal growth, while also supporting conservation initiatives and local communities.

Why North America?
A: Journeysmiths has been arranging the finest, bespoke travel itineraries to the world’s wild places for more than 30 years. Providing personalized service has always been at the heart of everything we do. We have found that the North American market shares that core value. Over the last few years, we have seen a steady stream of direct business coming from North America. However partnering with U.S. advisors to craft unique wildlife and cultural experiences for their clients came about more recently. As we began to grow and better understand the unique relationship agents have with their clients, it felt like a natural next step for us was to focus on developing those travel advisor partnerships. High quality, experiential family travel is also an area of focus for us and this is huge in the North American market. We felt we were in a great position to best support the advisor community while creating meaningful vacations for their clients.

What makes your company different from tour operators already working with the North American trade?
A: Our history and values make us unique. We are a boutique, family-owned tour operator with over 30 years’ experience, driven by a passion to help protect the often vulnerable natural environments and empower local communities in which we work. We do this by crafting the finest bespoke vacations to the world’s wild places and working with partners who share our values. We have also grown a network of positive impact partners who support conservation and communities in our destinations and to whom we donate a minimum of 5% of our net profit each year. We value our personal relationships and see the creation of a client’s itinerary as a deeply personal collaboration between them, their agent and us. Since many of our clients’ demographic skews toward the HNW [high net worth], we prefer to work closely with a smaller number of agents, to whom we can dedicate our time and ensure they are well prepared to sell a destination. For us, it is all about providing the highest levels of personalized service. 

What training and marketing tools do you offer travel advisors to help them get to know (and sell) your brand better?
A: Our first priority is to ensure that there is synergy between the advisor’s client and our values, and to understand the agent’s client demographic. Laying those foundations in place is key to a successful partnership. The team has developed a program of training materials designed to provide advisors with in-depth knowledge on individual destinations. The materials focus on key regions, products and pricing, as well as all of the nuances that make that particular destination unique. Sample itineraries are also provided in order to assist the agent in understanding how different locations can be seamlessly combined to create a diverse and highly personalized travel itinerary. Once an advisor feels confident that they are ready to promote a destination, we work with them to create a marketing plan, offer advice and, should the agent wish, provide materials they can send onto their clients.

Boiled down to one reason, why should North American travel advisors give your company a chance?
A: Throughout our 30 years of experience arranging the highest quality bespoke itineraries, we have amassed a vast amount of intricate knowledge and experience on the world’s wild places, and cultivated personal relationships with our partners. This ensures that when advisors work with Journeysmiths, they can rest easy in the knowledge that their valuable HNW clients will be treated to the very best travel experiences at the highest levels of service.

SWAN HELLENIC
With a storied history that dates back to the 1950s, Swan Hellenic has been a longtime presence in the U.K., offering upmarket cultural expedition cruises until 2017 when its parent company went out of business. In 2020, a new parent company revived the brand with its first ship hitting the water in December 2021 and the second in September 2022.

Why North America?
North America has been a key market for Swan Hellenic ever since we started, because expeditions are part of your culture here, not a new way to explore the world. It’s something people here have in their blood and are already passionate about.

What makes your company different from tour operators already working with the North American trade?
We take our guests to places other cruise lines simply don’t visit, offering them an in-depth experience worldwide. Above all, though, we’re a company that’s high-end without any of the usual distance or fuss, which is why we approach the market by involving travel advisors directly to experience our ships and cultural expedition cruises, and to test our new product developments. For example, we organized a showcase event in Boston last year to bring travel advisors aboard to personally experience what we do and how we do it. Building on that, we’’ll be inviting travel advisors from across North America aboard our new ship SH Diana for her naming ceremony in Amsterdam in May, with U.S. luxury travel icon Valerie Wilson as godmother. They can then stay on board to experience the post-naming cruise, Norway Explored. We’ve also just announced a partnership with the SETI Institute. Having eminent NASA scientists aboard is a quite unique way for our guests to explore the world, interacting with them socially as well as on expeditions and during their lectures.

What training and marketing tools do you offer travel advisors to help them get to know (and sell) your brand better?
A: Alongside all the usual tools, we’re committed – as I said – to bringing travel advisers aboard as much as we can, confident that encountering our ships and service is the best way to understand the very special experience we provide. In addition, we are currently building some remarkable partnerships that will bring travel advisors more opportunities to reach interesting new targets with great potential.

Boiled down to one reason, why should North American travel advisors give your company a chance?
A: We’re unique, exploring unique destinations up-close and in real depth on fully-featured, state-of-the-art small ships, giving guests the opportunity to interact with leading experts on board, including SETI NASA scientists, while enjoying gourmet cuisine and the highest standards of attentive, personal service.

SPECIALIST JOURNEYS
UK-based Specialist Journeys operates two distinct tour brands: Andante Travels, which offers archeology-themed tours, and Brightwater Holidays, which specializes in Scotland travel. Both brands are well-respected in the U.K. with both winning Gold at the British Travel Awards in November 2022. Andante Travels’ tours have previously appeared in National Geographic under the publication’s “Trips of a Lifetime” feature.

Why North America?
A: We previously had an office in Manhattan, but when the business was taken over by our CEO Jackie Willis, we brought everything back in-house here in the UK. We already have a number of guests from within North America who choose to travel with Specialist Journeys and we are looking to expand on this as there is a fantastic market there both for the expert-led archaeological tours we run with Andante Travels and also with the gardens and Scottish tours offered by Brightwater Holidays. The market appeals to us because there’s a strong interest in ancestry and history, and we operate award-winning tours that shine a spotlight on these areas.

What makes your company different from tour operators already working with the North American trade?
A: The two special interest companies that fall under the Specialist Journeys umbrella are offering something different to the North American market. Where Andante Travels is concerned, our tours are created by an experienced team and led by expert guides, many of whom are working archaeologists, renowned academics and well-known personalities. Our archaeology tours take guests to the heart of the history and often include special access or visits to sites that are difficult to explore without a specialist guide. Guests from North America enjoy travelling with us not only for the prestige of exploring the ancient world in the company of an award-winning tour operator from the United Kingdom, but because of the unique itineraries to choose from that are all led by experts in their field.

Brightwater Holidays, on the other hand, has been based in Scotland for over 30 years and we have won multiple awards for our escorted coach holidays, many of which explore our homeland. There’s no one better to trust with your Scottish explorations as we know the country inside and out, and can take guests to places that might be tricky to navigate independently, but that shouldn’t be missed!

What training and marketing tools do you offer travel advisors to help them get to know (and sell) your brand better?
A: Direct access to the marketing team so they can get in touch with questions, as well as full access to online training manuals and aide memoires.

Boiled down to one reason, why should North American travel advisors give your company a chance?
A: Both the Specialist Journeys brands provide guests with experiences they won’t find elsewhere. Many have imitated our itineraries, but they are never matched. We also support solo travelers with special departures that have no single supplement or a lower single supplement. Some of our U.S. guests like to research their family history as they have Scottish roots, for example, and want to extend their vacations to include specific locations and even to explore their family tree. Many of Brightwater Holidays’ Tour Managers are local to the area (especially those who lead our Scottish tours and offer in-depth local knowledge) and have lots of stories to tell.