Earlier this year I sailed in Antarctica with my husband, an avid snorkeler. When it was time for the ship’s passengers to experience the polar plunge—a rite-of-passage for first timers sailing in the destination—my husband opted out because he said, “I don’t want to just plunge; I want to explore the ocean, not just go in for a few second or so.” I thought, snorkeling in Antarctica—who would opt for that experience? According to Aurora Expeditions’ Head of Global Sales, David Tanguay, more adventurous travelers than you might think.
“Many people reach out to Aurora Expeditions specifically for that program,” he told Recommend during a recent conversation. “It’s a unique selling point for us. When they reach out to us, they mention that snorkeling was part of the decision.”
In fact, Aurora Expeditions is one of the few companies that offers this experience in that region of the world. What else makes this Australian-owned adventure travel company, celebrating 35 years in operation and a Certified B Corporation, one you should have on your radar? Read on for my full conversation with Tanguay, which touches on everything from Aurora’s growth in the North American market and how travel advisors play a significant role in that growth, to the org’s first women-only expedition.
Recommend magazine: Aurora is celebrating its 35th anniversary and earlier this year completed its largest Antarctic season to date. What’s driving that growth, and what are you seeing in terms of demand for expedition travel right now?
David Tanguay: Indeed, we are celebrating 35 years of operations, which is a very big milestone for Aurora Expeditions. We’re very excited because while we operated the most comprehensive [Antarctica] season yet, we also launched the newest ship, Douglas Mawson, in December 2025. The ship started to operate in Antarctica as of December of last year, which was incredibly exciting for us.
One of the key products and experiences that we offered for the first time this past Antarctic season was also our all-inclusive Antarctic program, where we offer optional activities as part of the experience. Normally, optional activities are at additional costs and for a limited number of people. But for those departures, what we did is we included them for all the passengers. We had two departures where all the passengers had the opportunity to go paddling four times, snorkeling in Antarctica, camping and snowshoeing as well.
This is where Aurora really shines. It’s one of our core value propositions as an organization—we offer one of the most comprehensive activity programs in the industry when it comes to polar expeditions. And for us to be able to offer these two departures the past Antarctic season and being so popular, it really showed the level of endorsement from the trade community and our passengers.
We’ll have two more coming up in the Antarctic 2026 and 2027, and then for 2027 and 2028, we’ve added one [more] departure.
Now, to answer your original question, what’s driving the growth. Aurora Expeditions has founder-led in Australia by Greg Mortimer, who is known for his adventure sense—he was the first [Australian] to summit Mount Everest without [supplementary] oxygen. …Being an Australian company for such a long time, we penetrated the North American market about four years ago.
That was a consequence of having three ships [in] our fleet, so we needed to scale as an organization, and therefore, the North American market was, of course, the one market that we needed to invest in and offer what we offer as an organization. We’re very pleased to see the amount of growth that we’re seeing year over year in North America, which is above 30 percent.
It’s very exciting to see the level of trust that our North American partners are giving to us.
Recommend magazine: I want to go back to the snorkeling in Antarctica….
David Tanguay: We offer approximately 36 departures in Antarctica across the three ships. Two of [those departures] this past season were dedicated to what we call the Active Antarctica Program. The way we run that program is it’s in a small group and we offer the opportunity to go twice during the expedition when it’s optional. When it’s part of the inclusion, during the Active Antarctica Program, we allow people to do it one time to give the opportunity for all the passengers to take part in it. Those Active Antarctica Programs are in November.
So, the very start of the season when Antarctica is very pristine. But we also offer snorkeling in later departures as well. As an optional activity, we offer it for other departures in December or even later in the season.
Recommend magazine: Who is booking Aurora today compared to four, five years ago in North America? Have you seen a change, a fluctuation?
David Tanguay: North America, at the moment, represents 50 percent of our passengers traveling in Antarctica. We see the traditional couples…the majority or the average age I would say is 55-plus. But we also are seeing, to your question, a trend of younger travelers joining Aurora Expeditions, and primarily driven by our activity program.
We also see more and more solo travelers joining and that’s a consequence of one of the programs that we launched about a year ago, where we dedicate 10 cabins to solo travelers with no single supplement on every departure for every season that we operate. So not even just Antarctica, but also in the Arctic, in Northern Europe, in the Mediterranean….
Recommend magazine: Yeah, solo travel is growing so much, especially among women.
David Tanguay: You’re absolutely right. Women are definitely one of them. And to add to that we launched, for the very first time, a women-only expedition in Antarctica, which we will operate for the very first time in February 2027.
And because of its success and level of response and engagement that we got from the trade community, we launched another one for March 2028.
Recommend magazine: Can you speak a little bit about the Aurora Advisor Advantage? I know it was launched based on feedback. What were the advisors telling you and what are the key points that they need to know?
David Tanguay: For us, the purpose of the Advisor Advantage program is to demonstrate our level of support that we want to provide to the trade community. The trade community is instrumental to our growth, so we designed a program that will enable them to sell expeditions with Aurora.
One of the key points is commission payments. Traditionally, we would pay commission about 30 days following the departure date of their client. Moving forward, we’re paying commission 60 days prior to the start of the cruise. We’re bringing the commission payment earlier by 90 days, which is a great benefit for travel advisors. This is in recognition and support of the trade.
Another key element that we’re also very excited about is our agent rates, which allow trade partners to make a booking and join Aurora on an expedition up to four months prior to departure The rate is from $300 per day, which is incredible. An average expedition is 11 days, so it’d be about $3,300.
Another key element is our flexibility program. As you know, we launch our sailing schedules approximately two years or 24 months in advance. We see a fair amount of early bookings where our partners and clients benefit from a better price, of course. But things happen, right? There could be unforeseen circumstance where a passenger can no longer travel with us. Therefore, instead of applying a penalty due to the cancellation, we now allow passengers and trade partners to rebook these clients free of cancellation fees. So, they have the ability to rebook their client on a subsequent expedition, within 24 months after the cancellation, and all they have to do is to provide a deposit on the new voyage. We don’t apply any fees. They don’t lose any money. We just apply it as a credit.
Recommend magazine: How strong is brand awareness among North American travel advisors?
David Tanguay: I’m glad you asked this question. When I joined Aurora Expeditions three years ago, the first event that I joined was Virtuoso Travel Week. My first observation that I saw from the trade partners and during our conversations with them was, “Who are you? Are you a startup? Are you a new company?”
We were really in the early stages of the brand awareness phase of our expeditions in the North American market. Fast forward three years and having attended [the most recent] Virtuoso Travel Week, the whole experience was completely different. Advisors came to us and said, “Oh my God, I’ve heard so much about you. I know an advisor who’s traveled with you recently, and that they couldn’t stop bragging about their experience with you. I want to learn more.”
Obviously, the number of bookings and year-over-year growth that we’re seeing in North America also shows the penetration and the awareness that we’re seeing in the market, and we’re still at an early stage.
We’ve invested a lot into our sales team as well. We have a large team out there on the ground supporting the trade partners.
Recommend magazine: Aurora lowered its minimum passenger age to six. What does that say about multi-generational trips? Can you speak a little to that?
David Tanguay: Absolutely. It is a segment that we want to attract more [of]. We truly believe that what we offer are life-changing experiences, and what we want to do is enable parents or grandparents to bring their grandchildren and their children to experience these very amazing experiences that we offer.
By lowering the age to six, it does open that door for the multi-gen segment. We [also] have a very large number of cabins that are interconnected.
Recommend magazine: Responsible travel is central to Aurora’s positioning, but how much is sustainability influencing, do you believe, the purchasing decision for today’s travelers?
David Tanguay: It depends by market. Globally speaking, it’s still at an early stage. If you look at Europe, we do see sustainability being a little bit further and more involved into the decision-making of a passenger or even a partner choosing a supplier to offer to their clients…. Europe is definitely far ahead compared to North America.
However, we are seeing signs and actions of the trade in North America wanting to learn more, wanting to be more conscious…. If on top of all the great experiences that we offer as a supplier, you can do it the right way, with the right partner who’s responsible, that’s who we want to be. Sustainability for us is very important; it’s part of our DNA.
This is just the beginning of the journey. We’re not perfect, and we know that, but it’s about looking at areas of improvement, and we’re just continuing on that journey.
Recommend magazine: Looking ahead, where do you see the greatest opportunities for Aurora Expeditions?
David Tanguay: From a destination perspective, we definitely see a lot of opportunities in the Northern Hemisphere.
Antarctica is, of course, one of the gateways to the expedition world. A lot of people either will go to the Galapagos or to Antarctica for their first expeditions, and then that’s when they get that expedition bug and then decide to go to other destinations. The Arctic region for us is definitely an opportunity for growth and that includes Svalbard, Greenland, the Canadian Arctic. But also, the non-polar destinations like Northern Europe.
One of our incredibly popular itineraries is the northern part of Scotland, so, all the North Shetland Islands, the Orkney Islands….
We just recently launched our Cultural Expeditions for 2028. We’re [offering ways] to explore, in a very expeditionary way, more mainstream destinations, but having access to the hidden gems of those destinations.
