Contiki adds a little spice

YOUTH brand Contiki has unveiled its ‘escape room’ activation at a house in Sydney’s Chippendale, decked out with typical experiences found in its new Southern Spice tour of India.

Opening today for one week, the sold-out activation provides an array of sensory encounters.

Guests can experience a virtual cruise along the waterways of Kerala, have a re-balancing of chakras through traditional massage, get to sample regional food and sip freshly brewed coffee distinct to the southern India region.

Speaking with TD, Katrina Barry md Contiki Australia, said “we had such success with the robots restaurants launch for Japan two years ago ( TD 24 Feb 15) and last year we had a colour party to launch our Eternal India tour up in Byron Bay at Splendour ( TD 3 May 16), so we wanted to do something special again because it’s such an experiential trip”.

The 11-day Southern Spice tour is one of six new or improved tours that feature in Contiki’s 2018/19 Asia & India brochure with Barry conceding there was always high pressure to continually innovate.

“Millennials want cultural, well rounded, lots of food- based experiences - there’s high pressure to go and find that and deliver it,” she said.

“What we like is to do really unique things around product innovation.”

Barry said Contiki’s Asia tours were seeing double-digit growth each year with some tours doubling the amount of departures available for 2018.

“The experience that our activation shows here is very different to what you would get in other areas of Asia,” she said, adding “we’re optimistic this new tour will go really well.”

Pictured are Katrina Barry md Contiki, Kirsten Bain head of ops APAC Contiki and John Veitch ceo the Travel Corporation Australia.