8 December, 2021
Former travel editor Tara Harrison sat on the idea of starting her own travel business for four years before COVID pushed her to take the leap. In 2020, despite travel and tourism businesses shutting down and struggling to reorganise, Harrison had an epiphany: “It made me realise that life is too short and too precious to play small, or not chase your dreams”.
She poured her energy into Aweventurer, a travel business focused on delivering transformative travel experiences. The idea was conceived in 2016 while she working as a travel journalist. Harrison was on a trip to Oman, going through high mountain passes on a 4WD with local Bedouins when she had this “rarefied, goosebump-inducing experience”. She thought: “how can I create that same magic for every traveller?”
A year later Harrison registered Aweventurer as a domain name. However, it wasn’t until 2020 that she had the time to invest in and build her business. “COVID was a circuit breaker where I hoped that this style of transformative travel would resonate - and it did,” she says. Travellers wanted connection and inspiration.
“I thought people would think I was crazy, but they didn’t. I think they knew I’d wanted to do this for years, and if I could test and learn in the age of COVID then the business would be set up for the future.”
However, starting a new travel business in the first year of COVID was tough. “There were so many challenges: from accommodation, venues and suppliers to border closures and travel postponements,” she says. When border closures and lockdowns stopped most travel, she was busy planning trips for the reopening and writing content for her website. “It gave me the confidence to know that if the business can survive that it can survive anything.”
Harrison got the idea for Aweventurer while on a work trip to Oman in 2016.
As a new business owner, Harrison says the biggest challenge was knowing what you can and can’t take on, especially when it comes to operating in domestic travel, as many accommodation venues were booked up 12 months to 24 months in advance. Other challenges, she says, were working out what grants the business was eligible for (as a new business, Aweventurer wasn’t eligible for COVID assistance, but was able to receive assistance under the JobMaker scheme), setting up payroll and super and establishing accounting best practice.
The business mainly engages contractors on retainer to look after marketing, PR and product. “This is valuable as it’s a monthly tap the business can turn on and off as needed,” she says.
Now in its second year of operation, Aweventurer has hired its first employee and its unique trips are selling out within days, if not hours. A trip to Tasmania recently sold out in 24 hours and a previous Uluru trip sold out in two hours. “72% of our travellers are solo female travellers. We have a young audience, and it’s beautiful to see travellers in their 20s, 30s and 40s seek experiences where they come home new,” she says.
Harrison is planning to launch international trips in 2022. “Trips to places that have an intrinsic awe aspect,” she says, which might include staying in an ancestral home in the foothills of Everest, or at a salt hotel on the high Bolivian altiplano, or even chasing pumas in Patagonia.
People’s desire to travel “hasn’t changed one iota”, Harrison says. It’s had the opposite effect. “People will never take the freedom of travel for granted again”.
Tara Harrison is the founder of travel company Aweventurer.
Other news:
- Resources to help small business selling to the NSW Government
- Rebuild, Recharge, Renew during NSW Small Business Month
Find us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn