Fitness company Reebok’s been helping travelers get workouts for decades, but now it’s really getting into the travel business. Reebok’s creating fitness-themed vacations in beautiful locations such as Montana and Utah, believing that Millennials will drive new demand for calorie-burning, muscle-building vacations.
“People are taking active vacations. They’re getting away from lying on the beach with umbrella drinks,” Linne Kimball, Reebok’s vice president of marketing, told me during our recent conversation.
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The trips, which will begin this summer, are called Reebok Fitness Vacations by Austin Adventures. Expect rock climbing, forest trail running, yoga and/or outdoor fitness classes.
“These trips where you can go cycling and kayaking or take a yoga retreat exist, but we thought we could bring more to this type of vacation,” she said. “Our mission as a company is to get people moving to living a fitness lifestyle, and so now they can take fitness with them when they go on vacation.”
For years I’ve been watching travel fitness flirt with each other, occasionally merging in interesting and successful ways. This pairing of a trusted fitness brand with a luxury tour operator, Austin Adventures, intrigued me. Will Under Armour follow? How about Nike?
Personally, the only so-called fitness-themed vacations I’ve ever taken are ski trips. In recent years, that’s meant week-long, spring break ski trips in Park City, Utah, with my sons; we typically ski every single day, weather permitting, taking little time to explore the area. On most other trips, I try to weave at least one memorable workout into my time. In the past, that’s meant trapeze flying at Trapeze School New York, Zumba class on the helipad of the Intercontinental hotel in Los Angeles, and a killer cardio class at the Sandy Lane resort in Barbados.
But Kimball sees a big future in this type of travel.
Reebok’s appealing to the so-called “fitness generation,” which Kimball says focuses on the 25 to 35-year-old crowd. Because Austin sells higher-priced tours, these specific vacations will likely appeal to the 35 to 45-year-old group, she said.
Until now, Reebok’s experience with the travel industry has consisted of working with hotel chains to develop fitness programs. Currently, the company has an arrangement with the luxury Fairmont hotel chain to offer its fitness-minded guests the ability to borrow Reebok athletic gear. I’ll explore this at a later time on Travel Update.
Photos courtesy of Reebok.
