B&T’s sister publication, Travel Weekly, hosted its annual industry event Travel DAZE, where travel industry experts, Aussie media icons and a couple of foreign ambassadors, amongst others, dazzled and informed a captivated audience.
Amongst those speaking was former co-founder of The Monkeys and current co-founder of Exceptional ALIEN, Justin Drape.
Drape began his talk with an overview of his previous work, most prominently his previous work with The Monkeys for the latest Qantas ad.
He then went on to discuss Exceptional ALIEN, his travel community site that he started last year with Michael Canning, another celebrated figure in adland.
Drape’s section at Travel DAZE was titled ‘The Future of Travel is Creative.’
He told the audience that his aim, alongside the mantra of Exceptional ALIEN is to “inspire people to see the world through diverse perspectives.”
Drape explained the role of creativity in travel and how he planned on launching travel playbooks that would help creators across the globe help people search and plan their travel through looking at creators and what they post.
This is part of Exceptional ALIEN’s goal, Drape said, to show off hidden gems and creators’ favourite destinations.
The main target demographic of Exceptional ALIEN is millennials and generation Z, of whom, Drape said, approximately 25 per cent would consider themselves to be creatives/creators.
As an example of how the travel site would work and function, Drape showed the creative travel blog of Nico Porteous – New Zealand’s youngest Olympic Games medallist.
Drape also discussed Exceptional ALIEN’s partnership with Tourism New Zealand and how he felt that the work his company was doing could have the potential to change the way people travel.
Exceptional ALIEN recently released part two of its collaboration with Tourism New Zealand to showcase New Zealand through the lens of different creatives including fashion designer Kiri Nathan, contemporary artist Sofia Minson, Fat Freddy’s Drop frontman Dallas Tamaira, sustainable fashion designer Maggie Hewitt, and Porteous.
