Opinion
- Another Wicked piece of marketing
  
  I’ve written about this before, but once again I have to confess to a sneaking admiration for the PR and marketing expertise of John Webb and Wicked Campers. Read more »
- Grounds for cautious optimism, but things could get worse before they get better
  
  Just got back from a couple of weeks in London – surely the world’s most depressed capital city at the moment, but more of that later – and everyone I speak to seems to be 20 per cent down. Read more »
- BOA successfully talks up the ‘Gong and south coast
  
  BOA president Katrina Greeves’ wrap-up on last week’s regional meeting in Wollongong.
  
  Over 10 local South Coast tourism operators joined BOA Committee representatives and members at the ‘BOA Talks South Coast’ event in Wollongong last Thursday to engage in lively debate regarding travel and tourism issues affecting the backpacker, student and youth market in the south coast region. Read more »
- What prison taught me about discounting
  
  Founder of Brokepacker.com Kevin Lippy explains there are three types of discounting ahead of the website’s launch tonight.
  
  A prison yard is a tough, volatile, dangerous, cut throat and an extremely unpredictable environment… Kind of like the Australian backpacking industry during low season. Read more »
- How many backpackers does it take to change a lightbulb?
  
  Thumbrella is conducting an exclusive industry survey this week, with just one question. How many of your customers are idiots? Read more »
- How’s business?
  
  So, how’s business? It’s a simple question, but it seems there’s no easy answer. Read more »
- Australian backpacking is the pulse we watch to gauge the health of the industry worldwide
  
  In this guest post, gapyear.com founder Tom Griffiths relects on the recent ATEC Backpacker and Youth Industry Conference and why Australia’s backpacking industry still leads the world.
  
  Like most of the delegates I spoke to, I found the recent ATEC Backpacker and Youth Industry Conference extremely interesting and useful. It’s very easy in these current times to set a safe agenda to cater for an industry licking its wounds, who want to hear good news stories and see rainbows ahead. Read more »
- McEvoy: ‘Put your tourism experiences on the map’
  
  Tourism Australia managing director Andrew McEvoy discusses the first stages of the There’s nothing like Australia campaign and urges the industry to get involved. Read more »
- The Cross needs backpackers to thrive
  
  In this guest post, a Kings Cross backpacker operator who wishes to remain anonymous outlines the benefits backpackers bring to the Cross.
  
  Lately there has been a concerted effort to push out the evil doing, backpacking “scum” from Potts Point together with various articles on your website and other media. Read more »
- There’s nothing like Australia’s violence on tourists…at least according to Google
  
  News in Sydney’s media of a young Scottish tourist who had been bashed by a group of youths in Sydney this week got me thinking, is violence in Australia towards foreigners worse than anywhere else or is it just because we’re here that we hear about it? Read more »
- Vote Australia – you know it makes sense
  
  If, as expected, British prime minister Gordon Brown goes to Buckingham Palace later today and asks the Queen to dissolve parliament, there will be a general election in the UK on Thursday May 6. Read more »
- Morrissey was right – life IS very long when you’re lonely…
  
  Last month I faced a classic publishing dilemma. When stories surfaced in the national press that a harvest work contractor in Bundaberg had allegedly sacked backpackers after they asked for water, my colleagues on the Backpacker Tourism Advisory Panel urged me to publish a story in TNT Magazine informing readers of their workplace rights. Read more »

Shake-up sees Base Travel retail brand axed

New Recreational Tourism Group CEO Nick Thomas has made a raft of personnel and strategic changes to Base and Backpackers World Travel in a bid to improve operational standards in the group’s hostel network and raise the profile of its retail arm among guests.

Chief Operating Officer, New Zealand, Peter Webster becomes Director of Operations, with responsibility for all hostels in Australia and NZ. Chief Operating Officer, Australia, Mark Sleigh is now Director of Business Development, identifying and opening new properties and developing the sales strategy to fill them. NZ Product and Operations Manager Justine Browne has left the company.

Thomas said Sleigh will be looking at all capital cities in Australia, with Cairns and Perth high priorities, along with extra capacity in Sydney and Melbourne, and Darwin “a consideration”. He said more capacity in the gateway cities was needed to allow Base to “funnel people up the coast”, but the cost of acquisition would have to be appropriate to the business.

“With real estate values so high, you have to be sure you can make a profit from $20 beds,” he added.

Meanwhile, Jeff Skinner is the new General Manager of Backpackers World Travel. Skinner, whose previous roles include a stint with Flight Centre, will roll out a new, single-brand strategy for the retail chain which, Thomas admitted, was “not in very good shape, but we do have very good people”.

The Base Travel retail brand within the hostel network will be dropped, with all retail outlets rebranded Backpackers World Travel, but with a facelift to give them a closer association with the hostel brand. Thomas said: “We will run a single retail brand and leverage the customers in the hostels to give it more exposure. Base Travel was hidden from view and, if you’ve got 4,000 people staying with you every night, you should be able to leverage them.”

He confirmed a new point of sale system should be ready for testing within the next four weeks, with the same system powering the Backpackers World Travel website. Thomas said it was vital to have a strong online presence in the youth market, but denied this would inevitably lead to shop closures. He added: “If the end point is you only have a website, then so be it, but I doubt that will happen. People still want advice, the stores will stay relevant.”

By Martin Lane · May 6th, 2009 at 6:32 pm