• by Sara Guaglione , February 5, 2020

Group Nine’s food and travel brand Thrillist is partnering with educational and branded travel provider Academic Travel Abroad, Inc. to curate international trips. 

"At Thrillist, we have such a rich travel database, which has grown over the years, so it made sense for us to create our own curated trips leveraging our hyper-local knowledge for our fans," stated Ocean MacAdams, Thrillist president.

The partnership marks Thrillist’s first time offering international travel experiences.

The first two "Thrillist Trips" available for 2020 are a five-day excursion to Mexico, “Mole and Mezcal: a Taste of Oaxaca,” and eight days in Morocco with “The Best of Marrakesh: Day to Night.” The maximum group size is 25 people.  The Mexico and Morocco trips start at $2,995 and $3,450, respectively, but doesn't include airfare.

“We tapped into our massive, engaged community of global travelers to identify the most desirable travel destinations and activities that people have been seeking out,” MacAdams stated. He adds the partnership "extends our travel editorial while also generating new revenue for our brand."

Thrillist conceives the trips and itineraries based on its audience data. It also handles the marketing of the trips, promoting the excursions across email, social and other platforms.

Academic Travel Abroad helps with the logistics on the ground to curate itineraries.

Thrillist plans to add eight to 10 new trips for 2021.

Recently, other publishers have gotten into the curated travel and tour business, developing a new revenue stream based on their expertise and audience in the space.

Lonely Planet announced a partnership with Intrepid Travel last month to offer more than 300 sustainable group tours worldwide. It is Lonely Planet’s first move into the tour business.

Vox Media’s Eater brand teamed up with Black Tomato to create travel packages centered around food, with new destinations released each month.