Business in Vancouver's “How I Did It” feature asks business leaders to explain in their own words how they achieved a business goal in the face of significant entrepreneurial challenges. In this week's issue, Trish Sare talks about how she turned her love of adventure travel into a business, BikeHike Adventures, and how the Internet has presented both opportunities and challenges for the travel business.
“My mom died when I was 17. She wanted to travel the world, but she was raising kids and she didn't have a chance. Then she got cancer when she was 40. Before she died, she said, ‘Go see the world. You have no idea what tomorrow holds for you.'
“I travelled for five years when I was 20, working my way around the world. From there I went to school, studying tourism and fitness leadership [at Humber College] in Toronto. Travel is my passion. If I had to spend my life working, I had to find a way that I could make money – because I couldn't afford to take the trips that I was doing – at my passion.
“We had to do a field internship and they asked me if I wanted to go to Costa Rica for my internship to do guide training. As soon as I graduated I would be stationed in Costa Rica as a guide. For the next two years, I ended up leading trips all over South and Central America.
“I didn't want to work for someone else so I came back to Toronto, knew that I needed to know what happened behind the scenes – because I already knew what happens on the ground – so I got a job with another tour operator, where I spent almost a year learning the ropes.
“For the first five years, I worked in another office under the licence of another company, ElderTreks. It was BikeHike, but I didn't have my own travel licence at that point. I was under their umbrella.
“We were one of the first who were doing multi-sport adventures all over the world. I started 20 years ago with one trip [to Costa Rica] – a $1,000 investment.
“There was no Internet back then. I put posters and bulletin boards in fitness clubs and put free ads in the Star and NOW Magazine in Toronto and did slide presentations and sold out the first trip. After three years, I added Turkey, Iceland, Peru and Ecuador.
“The Internet has been a blessing and a curse. In the beginning days, it made us extremely visible all over the world. Overnight it made us seem like a big fish in a small pond. All of a sudden we started getting bookings from other parts of Canada and the U.S. But it also started to increase the competition. The competition has become much more fierce. When we first started, we were one of the only ones. Now there are companies all over the world that are doing this.
“Our specialty is multi-activity with a really strong focus on culture.
“We work with local guides all over the world. So we don't have staff that we employ overseas – we work with local guides.
“Two years in a row we were ranked as one of the best adventure travel companies on earth by National Geographic Adventure magazine. That brought our credibility up overnight. I started 20 years ago with one trip and today we are 30 destinations worldwide. We are probably doing 100 trips a year now.”
