(SEATTLE) – July 2, 2009 – Fortified with new adventure travel content, enhanced site search functions and a broadening of its tour operator consumer review process, www.Adventure.Travel, an initiative of the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) and the traveler's guide for physical, cultural and nature-based adventure travel, has launched its first consumer-oriented advertising campaign of 2009.
In cooperative marketing efforts with various key adventure publications, Adventure.Travel advertising will reach a total of more than 2.5 million paying subscribers of Men's Journal, National Geographic Adventure, Backpacker, Archaeology and TNT (Australian travel publication) magazines. Additionally, the ads will appear in a major consumer retailer’s catalog (more than one million copies) and travel agent catalogs (more than 20,000) distributed through direct mail and passed out at consumer trade shows. Tens of thousands of Adventure.Travel Club Cards also have been distributed to clients of U.S.-based ATTA Member tour operators.
The ATTA launched Adventure.Travel in 2007 in response to increasing traveler demand for a reliable and credible online resource of information that would help travelers sift through the volumes of clutter on the Web. Today, Adventure.Travel features more than 200 pre-qualified members of the ATTA and is consistently placed among the top organic results for the search term "adventure travel" in numerous highly rated search engines including Google.com, Yahoo.com and Bing.com. For its core trade function, Adventure.Travel provides to adventure tour operators a consumer-facing online directory for travelers interested in researching and accessing trusted adventure tour operators, trip planning resources and compelling travel content.
Among several important site enhancements made, Adventure.Travel has introduced two new content sections including “Must Reads” and “Field News”, which joins the site’s “Adventures” and “Destinations” content areas. From a Beehive Rocket Festival in Taiwan to Kiting the Kenyan Coast, Must Reads features a new wave of timely adventure travel articles and images for travelers. Content contributions are from trusted adventure travel writers whose content is designed to inspire, engage, educate and motivate travelers to choose adventure first when considering what to do with their leisure time. ATTA’s Field News features ATTA Member news of interest to would-be travelers and highlights new itineraries, special projects, unusual traveler opportunities, volunteering opportunities, spotlights on sustainable tourism, and more.
Adventure.Travel also has opened to public traveler reviews using the industry standard for online reviews, PowerReviews. The ATTA believes that reviews by its members’ clientele is the primary selling point of the adventure directory for future bookers, with online reviews increasingly becoming a trusted source of information (Deloitte 2007), which is why traveler reviews have been a focus of the site since its beginning.
Key sponsors of Adventure.Travel include founding partner ExOfficio and Virtuoso Active & Specialty Travel (V.A.S.T.).
Established in 1990, the Seattle-based ATTA (www.adventuretravel.biz) is a global membership organization dedicated to unifying, networking, professionalizing, promoting and responsibly growing the adventure travel market. ATTA members include tour operators, destination marketing organizations, tourism boards, specialty travel agents, guides, accommodations, media and service providers. In addition to Adventure.Travel, ATTA is the host of the annual Adventure Travel World Summit (www.adventuretravelworldsummit.com) and the industry’s news source, www.AdventureTravelNews.com.