Stray, New Zealand’s leading ‘hop-on-hop-off’ bus network, was awarded the top accolade for Innovation across Australasia at the Golden Backpack Awards in Sydney in December.
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A combination of anticipating travellers trends, clever brand re-positioning and ‘sticking to their guns’ are what gave Stray the winning edge to take away the Innovation Award.
The Golden Backpack Awards are the only dedicated awards for the independent travel sector. The awards are voted for by consumers following a national campaign in TNT Magazine and online, which saw over 11,000 votes cast with the voting process monitored by an independent panel of judges.
Stray General Manager, Heather Young, said, “It’s great to be recognized by the industry and win at the Golden Backpack Awards. We’ve faced some challenging times this year, what with a challenging economic climate and fuel costs increasing by 50% combined with a key agent changing to a main competitor. But thanks to a great team we’ve managed to turn some negative circumstances into huge positives and have had had an incredible 40% increase in sales – a great success.”
Young added “Early in 2008 we went about to reinvent Stray as a small group touring company focusing on getting “Further off the beaten track”. Smaller group sizes gave us new accommodation options to give real authentic and local experiences such as a Marae Stay in Maketu; and the travellers get a more personalised travel experience. We also recognised that Travellers are becoming more conscious of the environment and that price was becoming less of a factor. We purchased 10 brand new Euro 4 rated Mitsubishi mini coaches making considerable savings on fuel costs and allowing us to position ourselves as New Zealand’s greenest backpacker bus fleet.”
