
American Tours International brings the World to the South
“Our success is all about partnerships with our destinations, clients and suppliers and being able to align their needs.” To that end, Travel South and ATI have partnered through the Drive America™self-drive programs to offer flexible, dynamic packaging technology to customize the Southern road trip for their extensive base of commercial travel buyers in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and the EU. We visited with Nick Hentschel, Chief Operating Officer of ATI, to find out more about this powerful partnership with Travel South.
Q: ATI has been bringing the world to America for over 40 years. What would you say is their recipe for success?
A: Partnerships with our destinations, clients and suppliers is the key to our success. A really great example is the work we are doing with Travel South, the states and city destinations that are part of the new campaign. It is really about exposing those destinations to our customers overseas and the US but also aligning it with the product. It’s not just awareness about what’s new in the destination but also about the hotel that you can stay at, and it’s bookable on Americantours.com or on the client’s system itself. The other thing I would say is when it comes to creating partnerships, it’s also about facilitating between destinations, bringing destinations together in the form of road trip itineraries that people already have in mind that are easily bookable and this inspires travel agents who would otherwise have to piece it together to use our package that we built with our destination partners.
Q: How does Drive America™ set itself apart from other tour programs?
A:. Drive America™is really a platform that allows travel agents to book something that has been curated and customized by ATI in partnership with destinations or create their own that they can book again and again for their customers. The experience is really about the two-week road trip, maybe around the National Parks. In the case of the South, going up the Mississippi River along the Natchez Parkway from New Orleans to Memphis and up to Nashville. For those kinds of road trips, we then have an element of both involvement with the actual product and with the operation, meaning they get the assistance of a mobile app with all the information about the destination. They can reach out to ATI or their travel advisor or travel company to have that extra level of assistance. They are not on their own, which is what would be the case if they booked a complex road trip alone. We have a long-term, strategic partnership with AAA, so we designed this with the AAA travel agents in mind, but also for our international clients that specialize in the US. They were mostly doing complex road trips and many multicenter destinations, so we created this platform to really combine those destinations and that product in a user-friendly way.
Q: How does Drive America™ develop and then sell authentic southern experiences?
A: Development is driven two ways: by the client or by the destination. It’s about starting a conversation with the destination partner about what kind of activities they want to feature. We consider many factors such as discount level, but the starting point is always destination recommendations. Next, we make sure that commercials make sense and that we can get it loaded through connectivity or into our system. Then ultimately it is packaged to sell. Sometimes it begins with the client really wanting to do more in a destination such as they see an ad for a new cooking class in New Orleans and then they ask us to add that to the package for them. You have to have fun activities, a combination of hotels from affordable to luxury so that the product appeals to different demographics and a lot of options. Our product team focuses on a really strong array and also on destinations that are not well-known. Another important distinction is that we work directly to get the products; we do not use any wholesalers. That is really important operationally as well as being able to deliver the best price.
We also like to be at the forefront of adding new products because that really shows the value of what we are able to offer and how we actually facilitate it. Our buying teams can do this because they are regionally based, so they are largely familiar with the destinations.
Q: When you are creating trip itineraries for the South, what are your customers interested in the most?
A: Cultural elements of the South such as music ,food experiences and the ability to have those authentic experiences in a way that is easily bookable and operationally feasible. It does vary somewhat from international to domestic in terms of wants and needs. But I think that when they think of a trip to the South, they are most interested in music, food and history
Q: What does your typical customer look like?
A: We have a pretty wide range customer base because we operate in over 70 international markets. In general, you are looking at a well-off couple or family that can afford a two-to-three-week holiday overseas. It is definitely the demographic the destinations want because they spend more, stay longer and that’s reflective of who we work with. Domestically, it is a little different. It is going to probably be someone who uses a travel advisor so they are going to be more well-off but less comfortable booking their travel themselves. They are going to be coming from somewhere far away from the South to experience something they are not very familiar with.
Q: How does Drive America™ encourage people to investigate the South?
A: The fact that we are working with many states and cities across the south. I think some have strong international exposure like New Orleans, while others like Branson do not. So we build these packages, and then make them easily bookable and combined with the activation of what is new in the destination. For example, we may provide the information on why a destination is interesting to music fans by telling them about live shows in Branson. International customers are not as familiar with these sorts of things. They are more likely to know about Nashville.
Q: Any final thoughts on travel to the South?
A: We are so appreciative of the partnership that Travel South has put together with all the states and local destination partners. I expect 2023 to be a continued recovery year for international travel. 2022 was good, but we haven’t realized the pent-up demand from a lot of international markets, namely continental Europe and Australia. We are very excited despite the challenges, such as the strength of the dollar, airfare costs and the energy crisis. We are still looking for continued growth in 2023.