Asia Travel Choice For Jobless

    BOULDER, CO, March 20, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Asia is the destination of choice for people wishing to take some time out and assess their choices following being laid off.

Sales of Intrepid Travel's Laid Off, Take Off promotion favor trips to Asia with 56.57 per cent of passengers booked on the promotion, followed by Africa with 27.5 per cent, Latin America with 13.5 per cent and North America with 2.75 per cent.

Sales of the promotion tripled from December to January and February saw the number of trips booked increase by 25 per cent. March is set to eclipse previous months, with sales equaling the January total a week into the month.

Trips booked ranged from eight to 60 days, with the average length being 18 days.

Intrepid Travel introduced the promotion in late November in response to customer enquiries about using their redundancy pay-out to travel. The discount is open to anyone who can provide evidence (in the form of an email or letter from their previous employer) that they have recently been made redundant. The discount applies to all Intrepid Travel small group adventures to over 100 countries around the world.

"The success of this promotion is bitter sweet for us. Whilst we are happy that it has given some people the chance to get away from it all, its growing popularity indicates that job losses are impacting more and more people," said CEO and Co-founder, Darrell Wade.

"Our Thailand trips start from $45 a day and many people have told us they can't live at home for that, so as strange as it sounds, they save money by traveling. We've been traveling to the region for 20 years and our trips are jam packed with the kind of experiences that will take people away from the every day and give them time to reassess and work out their next move."

"We realize not everyone who is laid off will be able to travel. Some people will have responsibilities such as mortgages and families. This offer is aimed at the sort of people we've seen coming into our stores - those who don't have financial responsibilities and who believe that redundancy could be a good thing for them."

For details about this offer visit html://www.intrepidtravel.com/laidofftakeoff

Media enquiries: Kim Greiner at 718-243-2979.

About Intrepid Travel Pty. Ltd.
With 20 years of experience, Intrepid Travel is one of the world's leading small group adventure tour operators. Intrepid takes around 80,000 travelers to over 100 countries worldwide, each and every year. Intrepid trips are designed to go off the beaten track, meet the locals and travel in an unconventional way, joining locals on their transport, in their markets and even in their homes. Intrepid employs close to a thousand employees in nearly 20 countries worldwide.

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