For many young travellers, arriving in a new country can be an overwhelming experience. That’s exactly why lifelong friends Darryl Newby and Adam Ogle set out to change the game. Drawing from their own adventures and deep industry expertise, the duo launched Welcome to Travel, a Melbourne-based tour company dedicated to giving new travellers the best possible start to their journey.
What started as a simple concept—helping backpackers, working holidaymakers, students, and gap-year adventurers settle into Australia—has since grown into a globally recognised brand, earning the title of Best Global Youth Tour Operator at the 2023 Global Youth Tourism Awards. But for Newby, this is just the beginning.
CMOs to Watch, presented by Zenith, spotlights the visionaries leading the charge. This series delves into the strategies and perspectives of CMOs who are setting new standards, pushing boundaries, and driving impact in ways that redefine what it means to be a leader in marketing today.
With a focus on creating unforgettable experiences, fostering meaningful connections, and pushing the boundaries of travel marketing, Welcome to Travel is on a mission to be the go-to brand for youth tourism.
B&T: What three things would you take to a desert island?
Newby: It depends on if the island is marketable and can be added to one of our tours.
If so:
- Camera
- Laptop
- Phone
If not, a Wilson’s volleyball, a knife (Crocodile Dundee style) and a picture of my family.
B&T: Favourite album, movie and book?
Newby: St Jude – The Courteeners takes me back to my uni days. Movie is a hard one for someone who studied film and TV but I’ll go with Touching The Void a doco/film about overcoming a mountaineering disaster. My wife gets frustrated that I don’t read enough fiction, so it will be no surprise to her that I’ll be adding a business book. Traction by Gino Wickman has had the biggest effect on my business.
B&T: What is your passion outside of work? (Think hobbies, sports, etc) and please send us a photo of you doing it!
Newby: It will come as no surprise that I like to travel but seek adventure. Jumping out of planes seven times, bungy jumping, hiking to Everest Base Camp and Machu Picchu. I’m not one to travel and sit on a beach.
In a normal week, after I have been to the gym while working in a challenge on a normal week, I love taking my little pug on walks. He brings me so much joy.
B&T: If you weren’t a CMO, what would you be doing?
Newby: In Welcome to Travel (the business my best friend Adam and I set up), I have gone across several different roles depending on where the business needed me.
It wasn’t too long ago that I was a tour guide, showing international travellers around Melbourne and Sydney.
If that’s where the business needed me I would go there as there is something special about getting that immediate feedback from travellers. Listening to their pain points, seeing awe when they see something new and being part of the start of lifelong friendships.
B&T: What was your favourite campaign of all time?
Newby: Dundee. Has to be for our industry. It made so much noise and was beautifully executed. It had everything; nostalgia, star power, story line and surprise. If you think about it in terms of the 4 Ps it’s pretty much flawless.
- Place: The Super Bowl followed by a follow up digital and OOH strategy
- Promotion: I can’t think of another tourism campaign that made such a loud noise.
- Price: Yes Australia is expensive to get to but this was aimed at high value travellers from America when the USD had a lot of buying power.
- Product: Is there a better product than Australia? It has everything that you could ask for, for so many different travel groups.
B&T: … Now let’s talk shop. What is your brand’s top priority for the next 12 months?
Newby: To have eSOV in the youth travel market. This is something which we used to have but since restarting post COVID we have been building brick by brick to ensure we have the best possible product.
We’ve now built out an incredible marketing team to be able to have fun with the brand again and I can’t wait to see what we create.
B&T: What channel is exciting you the most and how do you split your marketing budgets between long/short and channels mix?
Newby: It’s TikTok’s SEO strategy that is really going to be amped up which we’re going to lean into and keep experimenting on that platform.
Short strategies is a bit harder on TikTok within the travel industry and if they can team up with different travel tech companies then would love to invest more in conversion ads.
We’re kind of channel agnostic, we play where the future travellers play and at the moment that is TikTok.
We’re at about 80% long and 20% short – we want to create a brand that stands the test of time and we can’t do that by constant short performance campaigns.
B&T: What is the biggest challenge you currently face in the marketplace?
Newby: As most marketers would say it is the cost of living crisis.
Trying to get people travelling in an unstable climate is hard especially when our target markets are at the others side of the world.
We have quickly forgotten though about when we lost the privilege of going travelling and we need to remind people that not only is there beauty in the world but there’s friendships and memories to be made.
The world I feel is at an important inflection point of where we need connection more than ever and travel is the only thing which chucks you into a situation where people are seeking similar things to you and they are bound together by experience.
Well travel and The Marketing Academy is the only thing I can think of which binds people together like that.
B&T: What campaign are you most proud of?
Newby: It’s actually a campaign which we did in the early days of Welcome to Travel before I even knew how to market, this is back in 2017.
Nobody knew who we were so we needed to get people to know and like who we are in one media push.
Being in the youth travel industry we wrote a script about “things never said by backpackers”. Adam and I put ourselves in front on the camera as we couldn’t afford anyone.
Filmed it with the team at Second Breakfast they cut it together.
The focus was awareness and the platform Facebook.
Within 10 hours of posting we had 1 million views. 7 million by the end of the week.
We had worldwide coverage and all it we did was lean into our own travel experience and put it on camera.
B&T: Where do you see yourself in five years time?
Newby: Welcome to Travel will be more of a recognised brand in the travel space. Even though we won the best global youth tour operator at the 2023 Global Youth Tourism Awards, I feel like we’re only getting started.
I see my role evolving into more CBO as I have always had an impact on all aspects of the business. Being a founder is fun but being able to create a truly recognised global travel brand is fucking exciting.
B&T: Zenith is the presenting partner of B&T’s CMOs to Watch list. The agency takes a predictive view when it comes to industry perspectives. They’d like to know your prediction for marketing in the next 12 months
Newby: I think brands are going to leverage communities more…and not necessarily their own. It used to be where marketing managers would seek out influencers but now it will be communities. If the companies are big they will buy into one through collaboration. If they’re small and gutsy enough they will make their own and have it as a key result area.
This is where I want us to get to.
Check out the other instalments in the CMOs To Watch series here:
- CMOs To Watch, Presented By Zenith: Asahi’s Jemma Downey On Brewing Creativity & Crafting Brand Growth
- CMOs To Watch, Presented By Zenith: How Tourism Tasmania’s Lindene Cleary Keeps The Bottom Of Australia Top Of Mind
- CMOs To Watch, Presented By Zenith: Lisa Little-Cain On Bushwalks, Big Ideas & Brand Brilliance At Aldi
- CMOs To Watch, Presented By Zenith: How Shad Haehae Is Raising The Marketing Bar & Raising His Daughter Along The Way
- CMOs To Watch, Presented By Zenith: Super Mum & Coles Super Marketer, Alex Piercy
- CMOs To Watch, Presented By Zenith: Telstra’s Alita McMenamin On Brand, Balance & The Power Of Family
- CMOs To Watch, Presented By Zenith: 28 Group’s Tim White On Storytelling, Social Media & Sport
- CMOs To Watch, Presented By Zenith: Meet Zach Kitschke, Full Time Canva CMO, Part Time Snowboarding Superstar
- CMOs To Watch, Presented By Zenith: Meet Peita Golden, Telco Marketing Boss, Footy Fanatic & Future Pub Owner
- CMOs To Watch, Presented By Zenith: Peter Chapman On Driving Reflections Holidays’ Brand Transformation & Reimagining Camping
- CMOs To Watch, Presented By Zenith: Gardening & Dinner Parties, How Vinyl Group’s Alli Galloway Finds Peace Outside Of The Roaring Live Music Scene
- CMO’s To Watch, Presented By Zenith: The Little Joys Behind Michelle Rowling’s Thrilling Life At Luna Park
- CMOs To Watch, Presented By Zenith: Hawthorn FC’s Dan Hamer’s Next Big Partnership
- CMOs To Watch, Presented By Zenith: DrinkWise’s Part Time Builder, Part Time Marketer, Nathan Kent
- CMOs To Watch, Presented By Zenith: Mountain Culture’s Out Of This World Bradley Firth
