Project summary

Adventure Apes is an adventure travel guide service based in Finland. After taking the start-up to the next level by purchasing and renovating a rural village school into a six-room adventure lodge, they began exploring new markets. The history of the school-turned-lodge combined with their expertise guiding families made educational travel a logical fit.

Working closely with Adventure Apes’ owner and lead guide as renovations were underway, we developed a service prototype with a basic website and sales materials for tailor-made adventure camps. With the majority of the budget going to the renovations, we focused on keeping research and development costs low, adopting a combined sales and research strategy. Using the service prototype, we attended international sales events organised by Visit Finland to collect feedback on the concept and learn about our target market while also gathering sales leads. We used autoethnography to explore the future customer experience, identifying pain points and opportunities to delight along the way.

Our build and learn approach allowed for rapid iteration of the brand and concept. Once the renovations were complete, we were able to effectively shift to business development to grow the service line and acquire new bookings. In 2019 Adventure Ape’s tailor-made education camps were awarded among the top three Authentic Educational Travel Experiences in Finland by Visit Finland.

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