How Intrepid Travel navigates the disruption-reinvention cycle
Few industries are tested as relentlessly as travel. From economic uncertainty and sustainability pressures to rapid technological change, travel brands have had to constantly survive disruption.
Hazel McGuire, CMO of Intrepid Travel’s answer has been constant reinvention and it’s put them on the road to becoming a the first billion-dollar global travel brand. .
In this episode of The CMO Show, Ms McGuire, shares what it takes to lead through disruption in an industry that is always rebuilding itself, and how she is navigating that complexity.
Hazel unpacks how the company responded to the post‑COVID reset, as travellers began seeking deeper meaning, stronger social connection and better value from the experiences they choose. She explains why, even amid cost‑of‑living pressures, travel continues to matter,—and how brands must move beyond short‑term transactions to build long‑term resilience.
You’ll also hear how Intrepid’s long‑standing B Corp commitment shapes decision‑making behind the scenes, helping the business balance purpose and profit without turning values into a marketing headline. From evolving beyond performance‑heavy marketing to investing in brand‑led storytelling, Hazel explores how Intrepid stays human, credible and trusted in an industry increasingly shaped by automation and AI.
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This episode of The CMO Show was brought to you by host Mark Jones, producers Kate Zadel and Kirsten Bables and audio engineers Ed Cheng and Daniel Marr. This is an edited excerpt of the podcast transcript.
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Mark Jones
In marketing, we can be really. Marketing centric. We can think about our skills and then where we can apply them. But what if you could actually find that perfect job that aligned your passion for an industry with your technology, actually be industry centric in your approach to marketing?
Hello and welcome to the CMO show. My name is Mark Jones. Thank you so much for joining us. The CMO show is a podcast brought to you by Impact Institute in partnership with our friends at Adobe. We are by marketers, for marketers, and bring you amazing stories about how marketers are building growth and value. And I'm really excited about our guest today. Her name is Hazel McGuire. She's the CMO at Intrepid Travel. This is an Aussie travel company, very fast, becoming a $1 billion unicorn as it were in the travel space. I spoke to her about how she does her job. She's the first CMO. This is an organization that has grown to the extent that they need a CMO. Brand storytelling is a big part of this story, moving from demand-based marketing, performance marketing into a broader remit, which includes a real heavy focus on brand storytelling and, investing in brand.
So there's been a big shift in her approach, and really thinking through the role of experience. How do you reflect the experience of being in a type of group travel and the experiences they sell, bringing that into your storytelling, in your marketing strategy? Some really great lessons here about how to do all of that. And of course this perfect Venn diagram, I think in my mind anyway. You've got marketing skills, a real passion for the industry in this case travel with that, broader, investment in, personal growth and creating opportunities, professional development, it all kind of comes together, it seems, in this case. So a really great story. Let's dive in.
Hazel McGuire. How does it feel to be the very first CMO at Intrepid Travel?
Hazel McGuire
It is truly my dream role. I'm fairly new into Intrepid Travel. We have a lot of people who have been here for many, many years. I'm sort of three and a half years in. I joined just coming out of COVID, so joined in London as the UK European sales and marketing general manager. I was leading our sales and marketing efforts in that region.
Then had the opportunity in April this year to step into the very first inaugural CMO position within the structure following on from Lee Barnes, who was our Chief customer officer prior to that. Honestly, it's an absolute dream role. I've got a fantastic portfolio of things that I'm responsible for. I have a lot of plates to spin, but yeah, really enjoying it.
Mark Jones
Now, questions on behalf of the listener. What is Intrepid Travel and why does it need a CMO?
Hazel McGuire
Intrepid is the world's largest small group adventure travel company. We operate tours for small groups around 12 people or so around the world. Globally, a portfolio of over 900 itineraries and we are on a trajectory to become the world's first billion dollar adventure travel company. That's our stated aim. We needed somebody to step into the CMO position really to ensure that we've got a really fantastic plan and strategy behind how we utilise our brand and how we make the most of our experiences, and how we bring that together to create a really nice storytelling journey for our customers.
Mark Jones
I got to say, it's a fantastic line to say that we're going to be a unicorn in the travel space. My dad-ish punish thinks as you, you've got to have some sort of unicorn tour now, but that doesn't exist obviously, does it? Thank you. How can you say that? On what basis?
Hazel McGuire
On becoming the first billion-dollar adventure company? So as far as we're aware, there's no other small group adventure company hitting those revenue targets and we are coming out of year-on-year since COVID, we have had record-breaking years. We have really changed our strategy coming out of COVID to really look at how we position ourselves as a brand as well as a travel business.
We have really changed our marketing approach, our approach to telling our story to customers, and I think that's really paid off. As I say, we've come out of year-on-year biggest every years that we've had year-on-year ever since COVID we're on track to deliver another one going into 26. You heard it here first. We think the market is moving towards us.
We think that coming out of COVID, people really felt the need to expedience things more and really felt that lack of social connection. You weren't able to sort of immerse yourself in cultures because you weren't able to leave your home or your hometown. I think since then we've really been able to tap into that ability to make the most of social connection, make the most of cultural immersion, and that's been a huge part of our brand storytelling since COVID. I think it's really resonated with customers.
Mark Jones
One of the reasons I was looking forward to speaking with you is that I've read some reports by economists lately and they've been talking about the rebound and the continued growth in travel, particularly here in Australia where of course we're on aeroplanes all the time.
We love the country, but can't seem to get enough of getting away from it. I know that you guys are also really thinking deeply about customer experience because quite clearly you live it, right? You create it, you're part of that story. Give us that sort of big picture perspective that you've got.
Hazel McGuire
I think there's two things at play. Some is the sort of macro environment and as you say, the economy globally really has had quite a lot of fluctuation in the last few years. In Australia, exactly the same thing. There has been a resilience in the travel market. I think one thing we do find and we see right across the world in fact is that even when the economy is tough, customers tend to want to ring-fence that money for some travel.
As you say, coming out of Australia, it's almost a rite of passage, that ability to travel if of course you have the financial means to do so. I think across other markets and Australia we find that where people have to make decisions about where that disposable income goes to, oftentimes they're willing to, for example, forgo a visit out to a restaurant once a month in order to put money aside to still travel.
I think from the perspective of Intrepid, I think what we've wanted to do is really highlight the value that you get from an Intrepid trip. Really that is more than just a holiday, it's actually to do with, as I say, that social connection, that ability to connect both with fellow travellers but also with the communities and the people that you're visiting and the countries that you're visiting.
You get that second layer of value, I guess, to getting away and to having that time in the sun or that time in really any climate around the world, depending when you're travelling of course. I think it's those two things combined that mean that we have been able to really take advantage of that resiliency. Also, as a global business, we mitigate our risks somewhat by spreading our portfolio. We've got sales regions around the world and so therefore where we see one having a little bit of a tougher time, we rely on and we rely on other markets to bring that back up.
Australia, to be honest for us, has been an absolutely phenomenal growth story for the last two years. I think slightly slower to come out of the COVID slump. We know that capacity and airlines took some time to get back up to pre-COVID levels. I think it was only start of this year even that we actually tipped over that pre-COVID capacity number.
I definitely think in Australia we've seen that slightly slower start out the blocks coming from COVID, but then since then we really have seen the Australian public not only warming to our style of travel, but also just really seeing the value in that travel experience overall.
Mark Jones
Just briefly with the big macro thing, there's a lot of talk here about cost of living, how tough things are for people, and yet here we are talking about all this luxurious group travelling. What's going on? Why is there a disconnect between those two narratives?
Hazel McGuire
Look, I don't think there's a disconnect. I think Intrepid Travel offers travel at lots of different price points as well. We have a premium range, which is your higher four and a half star or so. We go right down to basics where we strip out some of the inclusions and we really go back to basics. We're using public transport. We've got the accommodation is a slightly, it's a two star, three star property.
We've got a lot of travellers who just love our original style, which is our core and really operates the vast majority of our customers, which is around that three and a half stars. Because you have meal inclusions, because you have your tour leader, you have your on the ground transport, the value that you can offer, and I think value is the important thing for customers in cost of living.
Yes, there is an element of perhaps as I said, forgoing one or two luxuries in a month in order to put the money aside to make that trip happen. I think people do tend, certainly reports that we see would tend to suggest that customers would rather forgo those little luxuries in order to have that holiday. Then I think the fact that we do offer such a range of different products and styles around the world means that you can choose a shorter haul product means you can choose a higher end product, a lower end, and you can kind of make that work for your budget as well.
Mark Jones
My 22-year-old daughter has just come back from a Contiki tour, which from my point of view, wow, that brand's still going. I thought that was, and I'm not just being unkind to your competitor for the sake of it. It was one of those interesting rediscoveries from my point of view, are they a competitor? What's the competitive set here? Is this that whole experiential thing? Are we seeing a resurgence of the idea of that?
Hazel McGuire
I think experiential travel is definitely on the up. I think people want that sort of broader meaning in a holiday and I think they're really leaning into having authentic experience as well they travel. I think for us the competitor set is not so much a specific group of companies so much as there's just so much choice for customers. You can have that fly and flop, you can have that sort of rented home accommodation in a city to go away for.
You can do cruising, can do coach touring, you can do independent travel. I think for us it's much more about leading with value, leading with purpose, leading with why Intrepid rather than necessarily trying to sit and compare ourselves to what else? Because to be honest, we could compare ourselves to limitless opportunities to holiday in different ways. I think that for us has meant that we have led with where we believe we should be going versus necessarily getting down to a granular level of competing ourselves to X or Y other company.
Mark Jones
I want to talk about the marketing story of course, which is our whole core business, but understanding that backdrop I think is really important. You've been known for making a shift from more direct sales and lead gen through to brand. There's a campaign called Only Intrepid, I'm keen to hear about. Can you tell us about the switch there in terms of strategy and campaign? What's been the insight driving that?
Hazel McGuire
Yeah, 100%. The insight driving that is a lot of marketing CD which does talk to the value or the longevity of brands that invest in brand versus just performance, short-term marketing. There's a lot of field of study with Les Binet and a few others that sort of talk to that. I think that piqued our interest from the perspective of how it could be done slightly differently.
I think going into COVID, we spent around 80% of our marketing budget on performance marketing, so very much Google and social advertising. I think going through COVID, look, it was an existential threat to us. We're a travel company and we couldn't travel, so we had some time to think. Instead of I guess just sitting back and hoping to get out the other side, we thought, "Well what can we use this time for whilst we're not actually able to necessarily be sending customers around the world?
One of the big things we did was we moved to what we term one B, one B, which is one brand, one business. Before COVID, we had a multitude of different customer brands. So we had a different brand for 18 to 35. We had a different brand for our premium customers, so our older slightly higher net worth customers. During COVID, we very much brought it back under the Intrepid name and the Intrepid brand, which was a risk in its own right.
What that meant is that coming out of COVID, we could make a really strong argument for saying there is a long-term value in us investing in Intrepid as a brand, not just as an experience as a product. Moving it away from that kind of more commodity to why would you want to travel with this company? We want to create Intrepid travellers. We don't want to create touring customers.
I think it was that sort of thinking where we went, "We've got an opportunity here." Because we had brought everything under that one Intrepid brand, it meant that we could put our investment behind one brand versus trying to spread that out so that was quite pivotal. Then really thinking about what was going to differentiate ourselves in the market.
Holidays can be a little bit commoditized when you go and do a Google search, it is very difficult for customers to perhaps pick apart what is different and why something is worth the money that you think it is and why another is a different price point. I think for us, putting value behind the brand was the first step in that journey. It's one that we started sort of three and a half years ago and we continue to be on today.
At this point in time, we spend around 50% of our marketing spend on brand and we spend 50% on traditional performance media, really sort of mid-bottom of the funnel in terms of more conversion driving and that's had massive impact for us. We have seen our brand awareness rise, we've started tracking that pre-COVID. Again, we wouldn't have tracked it in the same way, but really we realised that if we were going to invest in this way, we needed to have a metric to track. You can't measure what you don't track.
We started tracking brand awareness and we started looking at, we've started working with Dynamic Econometrics within our media channel split. And what that has meant is we are starting to see our data showing what the theoretical data shows, which is that the higher brand awareness you have, the less reliant you are on that paid media, the more you get that direct customer coming to you, the more that you can amplify your storytelling.
I think for us it's been a hugely positive shift, but it's still a journey. We're absolutely still on that journey and we definitely have in Australia, this is our highest brand awareness market globally as you would expect. We're an Australian company and we are headquartered here. We've been here for 36 years, so we would expect that, but we have that similar brand awareness right across the world. It's definitely, as I say, paying dividends. We're seeing record results, but it's not the end of the story. This is still a journey.
Mark Jones
Let's switch track now and talk about purpose. You're a B Corp and keen to understand how you balance the idea of purpose and ethical business practises in a category where firstly that's pretty standard, but obviously you're part of an industry that has a global footprint in terms of carbon emissions and so forth. I'm keen to hear you speak to that.
Hazel McGuire
Look, I think for us the number one thing is that the duality that we have between purpose and profit has been inbuilt in the company since day one. When Darrell and Manch started the company, we started with the concept of leave nothing but footprint sort of thing. That idea of that more immersive experience and not that going into people going into have conversations and broaden that cultural immersion.
I think going from those foundations to where we are today, that sort of through line, whilst it's got more nuanced now rather than leave nothing behind but footprints, we certainly have kept that ethos all the way through. Then when we decided that actually we were the first adventure travel company to be carbon-neutral back when that was seen as the right thing to do. I think after that we then recognised that wasn't enough and we needed more to guide our journey and that's when we decided to become a B Corp.
There are hundreds of accreditations out there. If you scan the market, you'll see that there's a proliferation of accreditations and things that you can hang your hat on in terms of where your purpose credentials set. For us, B Corp was a great option because it had a number of different elements, so it had a number of different pillars beneath it.
It wasn't just environmental, it wasn't just to do with wealth creation in the communities where we're travelling. It's not just about our internal stakeholders, it's about a whole breadth of pillars. I think that was super important to us because again, back to what I said in terms of you can't target what you can't track, so you can't measure what you don't, you need to measure, you need to have those measurements in place.
B Corp gave us the rigour around having those tracking metrics and we had the idea of B Corp is that, and it's changing slightly now, but the score continues to improve and it's a journey. That has just kept us on the track of saying, "Okay, when we're making a business decision, we have to make it with one eye on what our impact is and one eye on of course, delivery of commercial results with a commercial organisation, and we don't shy away from that."
It has given a sort of structure to the lens that I would say has always been in hand in the business, but it's given us a little bit more rigour I guess, around making those decisions and ensuring that the decisions are balanced in the right way between those two.
Mark Jones
I was going to ask you about the balance, and I think the interesting question that a lot of people who are not familiar with B Corp and we here at Impact Institute are also at B Corp. I understand the value of the metrics and the journey of which you speak and also how hard it is to get the certification just quietly. To what degree can you attribute your growth to being a B Corp?
Hazel McGuire
That's an interesting one because we fundamentally do not believe that the vast majority of our customers are choosing our product because they believe it is more ethical, more sustainable, more any of these sort of words or purpose-driven. To be honest, the vast majority of our customers are choosing our product because they think, "Wow, that looks great, there's great reviews. It's the right price. It's the right place. It's the right time of year. The company looks like it's a good company."
At its base level, that's where the decision making is happening. The purpose piece, I think, and a lot of studies have actually shown this, and this is globally, there's a sort of expectation from a customer that companies are doing things in the background. They don't necessarily want to make a decision on that basis. They don't necessarily want to be bothered by it, they certainly don't want to pay any more for it, but there is an expectation that something's happening in the background. What I think we use B Corp almost as the outside indication that those things in the background are happening. I guess that's sort of the best way for me to describe it.
Mark Jones
No, I get it.
Hazel McGuire
We genuinely are doing the things in the background. For us, it is fundamentally part of our business setup and B Corp is on quite honestly that sort of external facing stamp of, "This is true. We say what we do on the 10 kind of thing, and it's there." I think almost like, "Don't worry about it." Because I don't think consumers want to worry about it. They want to go on holiday, at the end of the day we're selling holidays.
You've got however many weeks of annual leave and you want to have an absolutely fantastic time. That's what we're in the business fix of delivering. It's important to us that we're also doing it in a way that tries to limit its impact or tries to make a positive impact on the communities that we're visiting, or tries to ensure that the money is actually staying in the communities and the countries in which we're visiting so that the economic benefit of tourism is not taking away. It's actually an addition, it's a positive addition. I think it's a way of saying that we are doing things and we are considering our purpose when we're making decisions, albeit we are a commercial organisation.
Mark Jones
It's very much table stakes. Some people will like it and others won't, which is fine. Now, I have to talk about AI because AI.
Hazel McGuire
If you don't talk about AI, what are you talking about at all?
Mark Jones
Yeah, that's right. The listener was going to flick to another show if we don't talk about it. I do ask because it is in my view, the most transformational technology we've seen in a very, very long time. If you are not AI-centric in the way that you think about marketing, about business growth and development, you will be left behind whether you like it or not. I'm keen for your take on how you can see it changing what you do right now or how it will change what you do in the future.
Hazel McGuire
I think the strategy that we're taking, we're people-centric. We're people business, we're about real, we're about social and human connection so that doesn't change. We are also not dinosaurs. We also realise that AI is going to make massive changes to our industry and we're really keen to be part of that change. I think when we start to look at the use cases internally, there's a huge win from a marketing tech standpoint.
There's huge wins in terms of being able to properly interrogate what's working and what's not from a creative standpoint and do that much, much more quickly. There's a huge win from a studio perspective that we can now have one asset that's designed and then we almost flow it through a programme and out pops 500 assets that we can use in 500 different placements, and it took two hours versus three days.
There's these wins I guess in the background that will be wins either for allowing our team to free up to thinking time rather than admin time, I guess. Also, to make our marketing more efficient. At the same point, we really where we can, we want every dollar squeeze to give us the best return. I think some of the programmes that we're starting to use, which our AI derived are allowing us to do this much, much faster and allowing us to be much more cognizant of what, and to make changes more quickly on that as well.
I think there's also still a part for that human storytelling. I think the way that we will use it is to enable us to show up better and show up in the right place for customers. I think we will continue to use our brand storytelling, we'll continue to use our positioning and our PR and our social to really emphasise the benefits of that social connection and cultural immersion.
I also know that we come into the work world and we spend all of our time hooked into technology. It's not necessarily face-to-face sometimes using tech, which is fantastic for enabling me to work in London and work with my team in Australia, but that time in person and that social connection I feel is going to become so much more vital and perhaps those moments of connection during times of holiday or that downtime, I just think that will become even more important.
Mark Jones
That makes a lot of sense. Now, for the listener who is probably, I suspect there's a couple of people actually who are listening to this because they've always wanted to work in travel or they do work in travel and marketing, it seems like the perfect Venn diagram of your skills and your personal interests and industry. Can you offer some advice on what it takes to succeed in this sector, in this space, in your role? What are the best tips that you can offer to your peers to make it in this space that you're in?
Hazel McGuire
Well, being generally passionate about what you do is fantastic. If you're not really into travel, it's probably not the industry for you to work in. Look, I think what's really served me well in my career, and it's been marketing or marketing adjacent all the way through quite commercial, is having a real understanding of numbers and being very commercial as well as being brand led and understanding that story telling piece as well.
I think you have to underpin it with what matters to usually that board level, that CEO level, which is understanding how you directly impact profitability and revenue. I think travel can look, it is a wonderful industry to work in and it can look very, we have lovely award ceremonies and we get to go and travel to far-flung locations and all these amazing things, but at the end of the day, we are also a business.
I think for me, for people coming through the industry, don't be shy and don't get too siloed in marketing. Be curious, reach out and understand different areas of the business, understand, make sure, know your numbers, and I think that sort of stand you in good stead to come through the industry as a positive part of it and have that opportunity to move your career forward as well.
Mark Jones
Know your numbers and have fun.
Hazel McGuire
That's exactly it, love that. That was much more succinct than I managed, so thanks for that, Mark.
Mark Jones
That's fine. We'll edit it in post. It'll be fine. No, I'm just kidding. Hazel McGuire, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you on the CMO Show. Thank you for telling us the story of Intrepid Group and the way that you've been approaching your career. I am genuinely inspired by this aspirational growth goal and we will be cheering you on as an Aussie brand with many global tentacles.
Hazel McGuire
Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.
Mark Jones
I really appreciated, Hazel's reference to brand storytelling, which is one of our favorite things at Impact Institute, and I have actually written a book about brand storytelling, some years ago now. It's called Beliefonomics, and I wanted to highlight something that she said, which is that their approach to brand story relies on these moments, telling the story of these little moments that happen when you're on a tour where something incredible happens. I don't know, it might be a sunset or something like that, and really bringing that alive in the stories that you tell in the marketing and so forth.
And that's really key because in brand storytelling, you know, I think about it as, as these stories that engage us from our both a hearts and minds perspective, what that means is that your audience gets really caught up in the story, in the experience, and they're more likely to engage at a deeper level with your brand. Quite clearly, that's paying dividends for Intrepid Travel, so we'll be watching them with great interest. So that's it for this episode of the CMO show. Thanks as always, for joining us. The CMO show is brought to you by Impact Institute in partnership with Adobe. See you next time.
Few industries are tested as relentlessly as travel. From economic uncertainty and sustainability pressures to rapid technological change, travel brands have had to constantly survive disruption.
Hazel McGuire, CMO of Intrepid Travel’s answer has been constant reinvention and it’s put them on the road to becoming a the first billion-dollar global travel brand.
In this episode of The CMO Show, Ms McGuire, shares what it takes to lead through disruption in an industry that is always rebuilding itself, and how she is navigating that complexity.
Hazel unpacks how the company responded to the post‑COVID reset, as travellers began seeking deeper meaning, stronger social connection and better value from the experiences they choose. She explains why, even amid cost‑of‑living pressures, travel continues to matter,—and how brands must move beyond short‑term transactions to build long‑term resilience.
You’ll also hear how Intrepid’s long‑standing B Corp commitment shapes decision‑making behind the scenes, helping the business balance purpose and profit without turning values into a marketing headline. From evolving beyond performance‑heavy marketing to investing in brand‑led storytelling, Hazel explores how Intrepid stays human, credible and trusted in an industry increasingly shaped by automation and AI.