A Quebec giant of the organized trip began a youthful treatment to adapt to the desires of younger travelers, who wish more autonomy than their elders.
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“Customers evolves, customers no longer have the same way to buy trips,” explains the CEO of Group Voyages Québec, Laurent Plourde, in an interview with The newspaper. They want to be more independent, and many do not need the “accompanied” aspect of traditional organized trips. ”
Difficult not to see in this trend a form of peril for the organized travel industry, whose “peace of mind” constitutes the very essence.
According to Mr. Plourde, however, “the organized journey is there to stay”. “Everything that is accompanied,” he explains, “it joins a clientele who does not want to break your head and be in a really complete security climate.”
“The younger clientele is not really found in there. Rather, she finds herself in the need to create her own packages herself, or to have more flexible, more affordable options, ”he says.
Travel in solo
Groupe Voyages Québec has therefore decided to completely detach its travel offer for individual customers from the rest of its catalog and devote a new division called Ugo. Voyage.
This offers two travel formats: a “ready-to-see” formula with routes and stops determined in advance and a “tailor-made” formula, where an agent concocts an itinerary from the wishes of customers.
In this case, why not just plan your trip entirely yourself?
For Mr. Plourde, the difference lies in “the coating of the service”. “With us, travelers leave their minds, because they always have someone with whom to communicate,” he said.
Cruising rhythm
For the moment, the UGO division occupies only a small part of the Voyages Québec group activities.
Of its 500 employees, the company devotes at most a dozen to this new division, a figure which is called to grow as the service becomes more popular.
“The interest is there, we already have hundreds of reservations”, blows Mr. Plourde, recalling that Ugo was officially launched on July 3.
“Business is fine, despite the fact that Quebec customers move less in the United States than usual this year because of the context,” he adds.