Intrepid Travel looks to a bright future

In three day’s time, it will mark one year since my leadership team and I sat around my kitchen table at home, making a decision that would have been unthinkable just 6 weeks earlier … with the world shutting down around us, we were about to cease Intrepid’s global operations for the first time in our then 31-year history.

Today, almost a year since that day, I am incredibly proud to announce that we have secured the largest investment in Intrepid’s history, an investment that will allow us to continue growing with purpose for the next three decades and, beyond.

To share this news, just one year on from hibernating our business and during an ongoing global pandemic, is not only remarkable but humbling. As we embark on the next chapter, I cannot help but reflect on the past year and all it has taught me about running a business and leading with empathy.

At Intrepid, we have had to make more life-changing decisions in the past 12 months than I care to recall. Every one of our team members have lost income, security, and certainty. Many of our people saw decades-long careers with us come to an end.

By the end of 2020 we had processed over 43,000 trip credits and returned $21M in refunds. As a business that is so invested in people, it was an ongoing challenge to turn away customers whose dream holidays had to be put on hold, many for now, others forever. The Intrepid community all over the world have made immense sacrifices to adjust to life without tourism. Leaders, guides, homestay hosts, drivers … people whose livelihoods depend on travel had their lives changed overnight. 

And of course, most devastatingly, some of us, or people close to us, have lost loved ones to COVID-19.

So while nothing could have prepared me to lead a global travel company through this pandemic, I have learned a lot. We celebrated wins and acknowledged failures, we faced endless challenges head-on and with empathy. But most importantly, as a business we never lost sight of the future and the people we were fighting for. 

It feels surreal to say but that future is finally here. The largest investment in our now 32-year history that secures Intrepid’s future and ensures we will be able to continue to transform our business and use it as a force for good.

Today we welcome French-based family investment company Genairgy, owned by Julien Leclercq, a board member and shareholder of Decathlon, one of the largest sports retailers globally, as a new minority stakeholder in our global business. Julien will join the Intrepid board, which otherwise remains unchanged, while Darrell and Manch continue to own the majority share of Intrepid. I will remain as CEO and am more inspired than ever to lead Intrepid out of this pandemic, building it back to be more sustainable, resilient, and profitable than ever before. 

Our new partner, Genairgy, is fully aligned on Intrepid’s mission to become the first $1 billion global adventure company. More importantly they recognise that this will only be achievable by balancing purpose and profit. With the help of Genairgy, we will be able to accelerate our product innovative, digital transformation, market expansion and purpose initiatives, carving out a clear path towards realizing our goals. You can read the full press release here.

While our deal will officially close in early April, the work is well underway.

Here in Australia, our team has started to gradually return to our global HQ in Melbourne. Across Europe, vaccination programs are rolling out quickly and our team in the UK is preparing for some semblance of summer travel to return. And just yesterday, in North America, we were recognised as one of the World's Most Innovative Companies 2021 by Fast Company. 

As the year progresses many of our 21 DMC offices around the world will reopen operations, while our responsible business team gets set to re-certify Intrepid as the world’s largest travel B Corp.

The energy at Intrepid is palpable, and the future is bright. The prospect of us returning to travel in a meaningful way is no longer a question of if but when. While new challenges most certainly await, today marks the start of a much brighter future.

I would like to extend a sincere thank you to our entire team around the world and all our partners who have helped us get to this point. Together we will continue to change the way people see the world.