April, 1962. A restless John Anderson sits in his London bedsit, itching to see Europe. The young Kiwi’s caught the travel bug in a big way, fuelled by high school geography classes, a weekend in Paris and the trip to England from New Zealand via the exotic Middle East.
It soon dawns on him that he isn’t the only Kiwi desperate to see the Continent. He crunches some numbers and figures out that if he fills a combi van with other young people and takes them around Europe he can charge them a set rate and go himself for free. He’s only been to France before and can’t speak any language other then English, but he’s determined to give it a shot. He puts up hand-written signs detailing his concept, finds some unsuspecting passengers, loads up his second-hand van and sets off.
But as this haphazard van of mayhem meanders through Europe, so are the wheels of a new empire. Nearly 50 years on from that original trip, Contiki tours have taken more than two million passengers all around the world.
John Anderson believes he was born an entrepreneur. As a child he kept chickens and sold the eggs to neighbours, grew plants and sold them at local shops. Like many of the entrepreneurs he’s met, Anderson wasn’t a shining star at school.
“Quite often when you’re in the B stream you’ve got to try that much harder. A lot of the guys or girls in A stream just take it for granted they will make it to the top, while for us in the B stream we’ve just got to try that much harder and it just follows through later in life, you make that extra effort because it’s become a habit.”
It was that drive that spurred the creation of Contiki from a couple of successful trips in 1962. In ‘63, Anderson ran the tour a few more times, learning from his mistakes and making it smoother. It grew and grew. Soon he was employing drivers and tour leaders, sending several vans a year off to Europe.
Always hungry for ways to make the trip better, he built tent villages within camp sites, and then bought iconic places such as a French chateau and an Italian villa for Contiki groups to stay in.
The company went global. Within a few decades Contiki buses explored routes through New Zealand, Australia, the United States and Canada. Other operators jumped on his concept and formed rival companies but all but a few went under.
Anderson left Contiki after the 1987 stockmarket crash. But at age 72, he’s far from retired. He works the professional speaking circuit, has started another tourism company and has written a book titled Only Two Seats Left about Contiki’s success.
Build a brand
One of the things Anderson stresses as the utmost importance is building a trustworthy brand. Contiki has been around for 50 years, and that’s no accident.
“I say the most valuable asset to any company is its brand. People challenge me and say ‘no, it’s the people’ and I say the people are important but they move on and the brand is there forever.
“Brands that tend to be around after 50 years are the reasonably honest brands. A brand that’s not honest doesn’t last the test of time as the consumer or media flush them out.
“Trust is the most important element. Contiki is now benefitting from this. Once you’ve got a brand people can trust, then you can tag other products onto it. They’ve gone into South America because the brand is trusted and people will go, they won’t give seconds thoughts on — is the company reliable, will it deliver? They’re now into Asia and China.”
He says building a trusted brand is the way you can get the most effective and cheapest form of advertising — word of mouth sales. “Contiki itself hardly ever advertises,” Anderson points out.
“You’ll see a Contiki ad but that’s normally a travel agent paying. Contiki relies on word of mouth and travel agents that trust the brand.
“The travel agent will do the sales job for us as they’ve had clients with Contiki before and they say ‘I’ve had other clients who have had a good experience I recommend you book with Contiki’. (Word of mouth is) the cheapest in cost but it’s a long term thing; it takes a long time to get it established. We get passengers that are the children or grandchildren of other Contiki passengers.”
Point of difference
Another important aspect every company needs is a point of difference. “Competition is tough out there — what point of difference have you got that will convince people to buy yours instead of someone else’s?”
Despite targeting the youth market, Anderson’s point of difference was Contiki’s more expensive prices.
“I had the theory that if people were going all this way then they would buy the best. So rather than battle against the discounters I made the decision to go a little more upmarket. Those Mercedes coaches were expensive to run, but I knew my passengers would be safe, they would get from A to B on time and the safety angle was terribly important. Sure, we had the odd accident but when you look at the millions of kilometres travelled, the company’s got the most amazing safety record.
“I remember once we had a 12-week tour and I said, ‘lets add the Greek Islands’. The extra cost was enormous but we said ‘lets give that option,’ and that tour sold more than the others. People are looking for value; they don’t mind paying top dollar providing they’re getting value for that money.”
In Anderson’s book Only Two Seats Left, he commits an entire chapter to the times one of his business ideas have failed or not gone as well as he’d liked. Anderson maintains that trying is always worth it. “If you don’t try you never know. Okay, I fell over so many times. I ummed and ahhed about putting that chapter in the book, because people will think I was an idiot, but some things didn’t work so we move on.
“A lot of entrepreneurs have the ability to go against the flow. I remember when we put up those tent villages, everybody thought it was a great idea, but nobody would support me because they said it was impossible to do. And I said ‘well, we’re going to try it’ — and it worked.”
New direction
Nearly 50 years after his first Contiki trip, and no spring chicken, Anderson is the force behind a new company — one called Contours. This company takes people aged 45 plus around South America, a place Anderson and his wife fell in love with when they first visited three years ago.
Contours is run by Anderson and one of the first Contiki drivers, a man named Ted Dziadkiewicz who has run South American tours for decades. “The theory was a lot of Contiki passengers who had a good time in their 20s could come and trust us again now they’re over 45. Also, I believe South America could well be challenging Europe in the next 10-15 years as the in place to go. At the moment they’re getting the infrastructure together, they’re not ready for mass tourism yet.”
Again, Dziadkiewicz and Anderson knew they needed a point of difference, especially as today there are numerous tours of South America. The pair decided that like Contiki, Contours would be about quality.
“We’re going to go for comfort — four and five star hotels, we’re going to put in all those unique features the other tour programmes don’t have. We’ve put environmental features in as that’s what the market now wants.
“We want the experiences to be authentic and not ruined by a large crowd of tourists so we cap the group at 18. For example, when we found a great restaurant in Buenos Areas, we decided to divide the group up — nine for one night, nine for the next to keep it small.”
The first Contours trips left in February and seven have returned successfully. There are currently only three routes, as the company wants to have them well-established before it adds more. Contours trips to Cuba and Mexico are being developed and Anderson already knows one person who has booked based on word of mouth advertising.
While he has recently moved to Auckland, Anderson still has strong ties to the South Island, his home of the past decade. Christchurch is the city his wife grew up in, and it now hosts the Ellerslie Flower Show, an idea Anderson thought up and was the inaugural CEO of. “I’m really impressed with what Christchurch has done with the show. It was becoming too commercial in Auckland.”
In the northern hemisphere summer of 2012 Anderson and his wife Ali will travel around Europe once more, tracing the original Contiki route. It will mark 50 years from that memorable trip of 1962 that started what is now a tourism empire.
Of all his successes, Anderson says he loves most when he speaks about Contiki and people from the audience tell him about the life long friends and relationships that were formed as young people on a bumpy road winding through a foreign land.
On the trip in 2012, Anderson is bound to see several brightly coloured Contiki buses, as this generation sets off on its own life-changing experiences. As he always does when he sees a Contiki bus, Anderson will wave as they go past. I’m sure many of the excited young people will wave back, thinking he is just a friendly older gentleman wishing them well, not knowing who he is or what he has created.
