Just want to tease all the GS owners.Dont tell me that you cannot afford the 20 USD for a year or 75 USD for 5 years.. The HU meetings are full of GS!
Ok.. this is my story & my personal viewpoint.
I feel blessed and honored to have the chance to meet Grant & Susan during the HU Ontario Meeting 2015. We only talked for a while but I saw in their eyes some spark!
First point: Forums like Expedition Portal or HU or ADV are basically online communities for all of us who travel, dream to travel, plan for travels and so on. Overland Sphere does not count (its so poor in content and the admin so bad but anyway..)
There is some potential or opportunity to make some money out of it but again it depends on the content you provide to the community (and lots of other things obviously).
Lets narrow down the online sources of information about travel planning as well as inspiration and platforms to share your life time adventure.
Its either travel forums or FB groups, right? An they are FREE! No alternative at the moment.. Books, magazines and expos contribute as well to information, technical expertise and knowledge sharing but they come with a cost, right?
I am personally an old school guy (only 35 years old) and I love following forums instead of FB groups. The content is well organised, the search button does miracles, the administration/ moderation actually exists, and in some cases you get some family feeling. FB has not been designed for those purposes and it will take some time to deliver.
For those following ExPo Forum, you can clearly tell that its a business. Yes, there is tons of information but if you look deeper its more about brands and reviews than pure overland planning and there is a big overland corporation to back it up.
But it does not work the same for HU. We already know who is behind the scenes.
For me, this makes a huge difference.
Second point: Lets have a look at the audience who follow the forums and their online behavior. From my little experience, there are two big groups (of course there are more but these two prevail). The first one is this small percentage that is loyal to the forum (any forum), tries to infuse it with this family feeling because he feels that the forum is part of his family, he shares some understanding as well as technical information, experiences, pictures and so on. This is one of the two groups. Small in numbers but big in contribution and loyalty.
On the other hand, the second group which is big in numbers, are the people who are basically interested for planning only. So they register (or maybe they dont), they have some questions, they get their answers and puuuffffff.. they disappear. Big in numbers but poor in contribution.
I can see what Grant & Susan have achieved so far (everybody can see) and I can also see what they are expecting and what they are asking.
Third point: Information is for free. I am not sure if it must be for free (long discussion) but so far, knowledge and information is for free in various sources and forms. HU has a huge chunk of travel information and they didnt achieve it in a night. It took them a whole life. The only equivalent or alternative is travel literature and travel books (which have a price tag) that also have tons of info, knowledge and experiences for those who seek for this. But online stuff tends to be for free (either we like it or not).
To sum up, sources of travel information like HU exist and they are for free (so far). There is no differentiation of HU compared to other sources of travel info (so far).
With all respect to Grant & Susan amazing job all these years, for this "product" I am not willing to pay. If the "product" was premium & exceptional with some innovation and differentiation and the added-value would really make a difference in my long travel life, then I would pay not 20 but may 50-70 per year to support the product as well as allow the owners to make some reasonable profit out of it.
On the other hand, the HU meetings they organise all over the world is a great way to make some money. I have personally attended two for only one reason: to meet locals. Both in Canada & USA, the people we have met we are still in touch and they have become life-long friends. Both times, I gave a presentation because I could not afford paying (presenters get in for free) but for me it makes some sense. And I am sure that there are lots of people who can afford it. (teaser: those with the big GSs and the street tires). Plus, this target group craves for travel product like this so they dont mind to pay the 100-200 euro per meeting for a hot shower, a chalet, a hot meal. Not everyone wants to sleep in the woods, drive into the mud and eat noodles and eggs every night.
But having Grant & Sudan to talk about their adventures back in the 80s, YES, this is inspiration and you have to pay something for this.
For me, none of the big travel forums deserve a membership unless they change lots of things in the "product".
Maybe I am naive or short sighted but until today I thought that forum costs could be covered by advertising only. ExPo forum asks 1.5K for a Forum Vendor sponsor and 3K for a Forum Title Sponsor. And the forum is just full of vendors and title sponsors!
But for me, its so hard to convince people to pay for something that they can find somewhere else (most probably for free).
The world is changing. The same goes for travels. When Grant & Susan were travelling, there was no FB, HUBB, Google Maps, SPOT Messenger, SENA Bluetooth and the list can grow biiiiiiig.
Today, we are privileged to have an abundance of travel info but I think that we need to change the way it is shared, it is gathered and we need to add some value. Added value comes always with a price, right?
Finally, we have -as a community- to decide if and how we want to make money out of travels and overlanding. Someone writes a book, someone else creates a forum, someone else organises events, someone else does reviews and some others create products and services for all of us.
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