You've decided on the destination for your next adventure - it's a place you've always wanted to visit. But is this going to be a shared experience or a solo expedition? Deciding on your travel companion is a pivotal decision. Support on the road is great but it can turn sour if your travel buddy has different ideas for the trip than you.
Travelling as a Shared Experience
Topdeck recently invited their past passengers to complete a survey. Around 1300 people, aged between 18 and 39, responded to a broad range of travel related questions. Amongst the questions on the survey was one about the perfect travelling companion. Respondents were given a list of various celebrities and they had to pick which they'd like as their travel partner. With 36 per cent of vote, comedian Wil Anderson was the most popular.
Topdeck Sales Manager, Ben Ittensohn, believes that people travel to forget about life, so travelling with a comedian is a logical choice.
"In reality, we could have suggested any other Australian comedian and the result would have been the same. It's the characteristics of the Australian comedian that our passengers are identifying here," said Ben.
"People go on holidays to forget about work – they want to have a lot laughs and distance themselves from their day to day routine. Wil would offer that. Interestingly, for another question in the survey on why people travelled, most people responded for the food. So it doesn't surprise me that Jamie Oliver was the second most popular person selected as the ideal travel companion."
Australian fashion icon Miranda Kerr and British adventurer Bear Grylls rounded out the top four most desirable travel buddies.
Ben tells Flight Centre that around 50 per cent of travellers on a Topdeck trip are solo travellers.
"These solo travellers choose to travel on their own and still enjoy the benefits of organised coach travel. They join a Topdeck trip to meet people from all around the world and make friends for life – to be connected with people all over the world," said Ben.
As a tour operator, Topdeck consciously promotes their holidays as trips, not tours. The difference is that Topdeck will take curious travellers to destinations and then give them the freedom to explore the city as they desire. In this way, holiday-makers essentially have the best of both worlds when it comes to travelling companions - they don't need to compromise on their holiday and still enjoy the support and organisation.
"Topdeck trips are not Topdeck tours – we give travellers an idea of what to do and allow them full free days to explore the city. We provide as much free time as possible so they get to do what they want. This has been resonating with our market - they want a little bit of structure but they want a lot of free time," said Ben.
