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There’s a rising demand for experiential and wellness journey.
Not within the Guidebooks provide genuine experiential journey designed and delivered by native hosts. From day experiences to longer itineraries all filled with native experiences, premium lodging, and transfers included making it hassle-free and simple to e book.
For this text, we sat down with the CEO, Carol Savage, to seek out out somewhat extra concerning the inspiration behind the enterprise.
We’d like to find out about your profession earlier than Not within the Guidebooks and the place you first discovered that entrepreneurial spark.
I’ve had a different profession however at all times in advertising , gross sales and extra latterly e-commerce. I’ve had senior advertising roles at manufacturers equivalent to Disney, Whitbread and Pizza Hut.
My first enterprise was once I was doing my MBA at London Enterprise college. I used to be pregnant and I arrange my first enterprise to assist individuals work flexibly – it was a really totally different world than it’s immediately! I used to be capable of construct this consultancy and recruitment enterprise to over £5m after which bought the enterprise.
My second enterprise was a recipe sharing enterprise which I pitched and received backing for on Dragons Den – and importantly, I discovered a number of classes of what to not do in enterprise.
Thanks on your honesty. So, inform us about this enterprise – what it’s, what it goals to realize?
Not within the Guidebooks is a platform to assist travellers discover and e book probably the most experiential holidays; staying in distinctive premium lodges with itineraries filled with genuine experiences all designed and delivered by native hosts. Our imaginative and prescient is To create a world the place individuals join with locals, and interact with the place and tradition in a extra intimate approach, while having a minimal affect on the planet.
Our purpose is to increase our catalogue of experiences and experiential holidays, and construct an exit-ready £50m+ enterprise.
At present we promote through Journey Brokers and direct to the client. We’re working with a lot of the UK company teams together with Hays Journey, Journey Counsellors and Coop journey to call a number of they usually have entry to over 12m clients. They’re sharing our content material to encourage their viewers. We additionally attain direct clients through media partnerships (eg Wanderlust and Sunday Occasions), social media, search engine marketing and PPC.
How has the enterprise developed since its launch?
We flipped the enterprise utterly – we launched three months earlier than covid as a B2C enterprise. When lockdown occurred, we spent the next two years constructing relationships and contracting company teams and constructing our brokers platform. We made Not within the Guidebooks centered on fixing the issue of how one can discover and e book native operators on one single platform with one single forex for journey brokers, in order that they may create probably the most experiential and sustainable journeys for his or her clients.
What are you able to inform us concerning the market and the way Not within the Guidebooks is positioning itself for fulfillment?
The journey market and the travelling client has modified fairly considerably over the previous couple of years. Persons are in search of extra experiences after they journey – even when they e book a seaside vacation or a cruise they nonetheless wish to join with locals even for simply in the future after they get to the place they’re visiting. The journey market has grown by 148% since earlier than the pandemic. And many individuals will select several types of holidays for various events, from coastal holidays to metropolis breaks.
We’re positioning ourselves to be one of the best supplier of experiential sustainable journey for when individuals don’t simply wish to sit on the seaside .
How did your corporation react to the pandemic and the journey restrictions in place?
When the pandemic hit we turned our enterprise to be a provider to the commerce. We contracted quirky experiential lodging within the UK in addition to English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish experiences. As an example, there may be one in Northern Eire the place you keep in a shepherd’s hut and be taught wooden whittling to make a salad bowl – it’s on my should do listing!
Now in 2023, what are the goals of this elevate and why is true now one of the best time to launch the marketing campaign?
We’re inundated with demand and we don’t have sufficient employees to offer the service ranges we wish to.
We’ll rent extra individuals (we at present have a ridiculously small workforce and I’m so happy with them for what they’ve achieved to this point) in order that we will deliver on extra experiences and create extra wonderful informative and galvanizing content material. We plan to additional have interaction with our company companions to enhance and improve our know-how in addition to spend money on advertising to construct model consciousness and attain new clients.
Might you inform us about a few of your greatest achievements so far?
My absolute greatest achievement in my life to this point is my three superior sons! As a working mum, I feel it does actually nice issues on your kids to witness your laborious work and it’s introduced out a very robust work ethic in them. Nevertheless to make it actually work I made positive I used to be there for all of the necessary moments of my household’s life.
Other than my household, finishing my MBA while on maternity go away to being supplied both funding or a job from all of the dragons on Dragon’s Den!
After which with Not within the Guidebooks, establishing a journey firm three months earlier than the pandemic and navigating one of many craziest instances in enterprise, I’m so happy with the implausible workforce and robust model we’ve constructed.
Not within the Guidebooks is a premium accountable journey platform providing immersive native experiences for unbiased travellers. The marketing campaign is a superb alternative to affix a mission to create genuine, distinctive journey experiences while being hassle-free.
Take a look at the marketing campaign web page to be taught extra.
