For years, Wendy Wu only ever wanted to be a China specialist. Even now, as she reflects on 25 years of Wendy Wu Tours, she stresses capturing the market in her vast homeland was her initial – and then only – goal.

However, after two seismic pandemics that shook Wendy Wu Tours to its foundations, the operator took a path Wu could never have imagined navigating.

“When I started, all I wanted for Wendy Wu Tours was to be a China specialist,” she tells me. “But thanks to Sars, we became an Asia specialist, and thanks to Covid, we became a touring specialist.”

Following the eight-month Sars pandemic in 2003, Wendy Wu Tours expanded to other parts of Asia, offering tours in Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, South Korea and India.

This change in direction, though, was even more stark during the operator’s recovery from Covid. Wendy Wu Tours started offering trips to Scotland in an attempt to satisfy those frustrated customers who were desperate to take a Wendy Wu trip during the Covid pandemic.

“Scotland was the only place where we could go,” she recalls, before listing the other countries the operator added during Covid – Portugal, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey. And as Covid started to become less of a concern, Wendy Wu Tours started offering Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.

Asked if she feels proud about reaching the quarter-century milestone, she says: “Staying in business for 25 years is nothing. I reckon we could go for 100 years. But I am proud of what we’ve achieved, especially after Covid. We’ve flown out of the ashes, like a phoenix.”

UNEXPECTED BEGINNINGS

So, how did Wu come to launch her eponymous tour operator? Well, the path to the company’s inception was not always clear. It was while she was studying English literature at Macquarie University in New South Wales, Australia, in 1994 that Wu planned a month-long trip to China with her then-boyfriend.

“I put in loads of hidden gems in China to show off to my partner,” she says. “Then, about two weeks before we departed, he had the opportunity to run a 40-person team as an acting manager at his work. If he did not take it, the opportunity would be offered to someone else.

“I said to him, ‘you must take this!’. It was then I realised I couldn’t get the money back for our trip because it was too late.”

To see if she could salvage her trip, Wu decided to put an advert in the Sydney Morning Herald.

“A lot of people wanted to come, but everyone had to get a visa,” she explains. “In the end, none of them could go because they couldn’t get a visa in time.”

Wu decided to travel to China, albeit on her own. And in doing so, she unwittingly took her first steps towards her future career.

She explains: “The people who were interested said they still wanted to go. They would say to me, ‘if you organise another trip, we will come’.

So, of course, I organised another trip. This time, 16 people went to China and the group went to see eight cities, including Beijing, Sichuan, Guilin, Yangshuo and Chongqing, in 28 days.”

Before travelling, Wu approached Australian travel agent Barry Alsop to make sure she had organised everything correctly.

Wu estimates that first 16-person group went on to travel with her another 160 times. She organised many of those initial trips from Alsop’s American Express Travel agency in New South Wales.

POST-COVID UPTICK

While Alsop and his team focused mainly on selling corporate travel, in the same office, Wu quietly laid the foundations for her China-focused business. “His team were able to take messages when I was too busy,” she says. “I broke away in 1998 [to launch Wendy Wu Tours].”

It’s some 25 years hence that Wu recounts this tale to TTG, with subsequent chapters in the story of Wendy Wu Tours charting growth and broad acclaim.

But it’s on Wu and her business’s most recent – and toughest – chapter that we refocus.

Covid forced Wu to broaden her horizons, but not without taking drastic action to safeguard everything she had achieved to date. “Before Covid, we had 230 employees; today, we have fewer than 100,” Wu says. 

Many employees, though, have returned. In fact, Wu reveals one UK-based employee returned to the business in the week TTG sits down with her. “I’ve always believed we select someone when we employee them, and then we grow together,” explains Wu.

Growth has been brisk post-Covid. In 2019, trips to China constituted around 50% of the operator’s business. In January this year, with China’s borders still closed, Wendy Wu Tours steeled itself for a 35% dip in sales from the UK, its top source market. Instead, forward bookings were 20% up that month even in the absence of China.

“We’ve done much better in 2023 than we expected,” she reveals. Wu believes the business is now benefitting from the virtual destination showcase events that it hosted during the pandemic. 

“We did so many parties during Covid,” says Wu. “They were called Travel The World From Your Lounge. The customers just lapped them up.” But she adds: “They said, ‘it’s all good having a party, but we want to go with you somewhere!’”

It was that sentiment that has prompted the largest product expansion in the history of Wendy Wu Tours. “To keep the momentum, we’re going to do three things,” Wu vows.

“Firstly, we’re going to go deeper into the destination. Secondly, we want to connect the ancient with the future more. Finally, we’re going to offer South Africa and Saudi Arabia next year.”

Twenty-five years ago, the idea of Wendy Wu Tours expanding into either country seemed remote at best, but today it appears to be a logical move – consistent with previous product expansions.

Clearly, Wendy Wu Tours is reaping the benefits of Wu’s ambition to be the China specialist, and the newfound opportunities presented by emerging destinations.

“These products have become part of our DNA now – and travel agents love them,” she smiles.