#ThrowbackThursday with Darrell Wade, Intrepid

Most travel pros know the Intrepid Travel origin story, but it’s worth mentioning that co-founder Darrell Wade didn’t always know the trade. This #ThrowbackThursday, Wade sits down with PAX to talk about his experience building a company from scratch in the late 80s. Spoiler alert: there will be short shorts.

What challenges did you face as a non-travel professional to get Intrepid off the ground? 

To be honest, the whole thing was daunting. Not only did we not have a clue about how to run a business, but we also did not have any idea of how the travel industry actually worked.

Now of course I take it all for granted, but back then I was walking into agencies and it was like they were speaking a different language! There were so many acronyms and so much jargon.  I must have looked like a complete fool!  There were airline codes, banking processes, ticketing procedures – to say nothing of all the associations and buying groups. But it is such an important part of where we came from. We were real travellers who wanted people to see the world in a new way. 

What were some surprising travel trade-related lessons you learned when you first started out?

One surprising lesson I learned was that as a supplier, I didn’t have to pay an agent to sell my product!  Seriously, I didn’t even realize that agents were commission-based.  This was actually a godsend as we had very little money in the early days, so to think agents would go to work for you and only get paid if they made a sale – well it was just the best thing ever!  Still is actually!  The other lesson I learned was that of loyalty and respect. If you treated agents well and respected their business they would look after you for years. It might be more commercial these days, but at a store level it’s still surprisingly similar.

What were some technological hurdles you had to overcome when you began building Intrepid?

You wouldn’t believe! Beyond a typewriter and telephone we had no technology whatsoever. My partner was in Thailand leading the trips and I would telephone him (from a land line!) on Thursday evening to tell him about the travellers who were arriving on Saturday. After a few months we got a fax machine, which was pure bliss.  

As the business grew I remember turning up to the office in the morning with hundreds of sheets of thermal fax paper spewed out on the floor. I never minded; they were our bookings coming in from all around the world!  Remember, all this is pre-Internet and e-mail – seems amazing now of course.

As time went on I realized that technology was going to have to be a core skill if we were to expand globally, so I actually learned how to design databases and connect them to e-mail and the Internet.  These days, people get paid very serious money for what I used to do through necessity!

How would you say running a travel business has changed?

Whilst what we do with our clients may be similar, the business itself has changed massively. Technology and scale are the two notables.

On the technology side the business is just a huge whir of data between source markets, destinations, banks, airlines, agents, suppliers and systems  – all run through a cloud somewhere, but I have no idea where!  How we got to this level of complexity I’m not even sure!

And as for scale, well, in our first year we had 45 travellers, coming from one country (Australia), travelling to one country (Thailand). I think I knew all their names! This year we’ll have around 250,000 travellers from around 40 countries travelling to over 100 different destination countries. Next year we’ll be about 20 per cent bigger again, and on it goes….

How has touring changed since you first started Intrepid? 

In many ways the actual touring itself hasn’t changed that much. Intrepid takes pride in getting travellers off the beaten path and tries to incorporate as many local forms of transport, accommodation and activities as we can. That incredible diversity of experiences is very much the same today as it was in the late 80’s. Only five days ago, I was in a motorcycle rickshaw in Cambodia thinking how much fun it was – but then it occurred to me that our travellers have been doing exactly that for more than 25 years!

What's the best thing about the travel business now, compared to what it was like when you first started out?

It’s a wonderful industry. Just last week I was in Hanoi celebrating the 10th year of our Destination Management Company there. Of the 16 people who started with us in that office, 12 are still there 10 years later, joined by about 50 new staff – they have all done so well through the years of growth and I’m just so proud of them.  

More generally though, I think the connectivity the travel industry provides these days never ceases to shock me. We take for granted what we arrange for clients. One day I’ll be in Melbourne, the next Istanbul, and then New York. It’s incredible.