Viking trips
| Wikinger Reisen GmbH
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1969 |
| Seat | Hagen , Germany |
| management | Daniel Kraus, managing partner, Janek Kraus, managing director |
| Number of employees | about 150 |
| sales | EUR 121.9 million (2019) |
| Branch | Tour operator |
| Website | www.wikinger-reisen.de |
The Viking Travel GmbH is a German tour operator based in the Westphalian Hagen . The company was founded in 1969 and is now the market leader in Europe for hiking tours. Wikinger Reisen offers guided and individual tours in various degrees of difficulty for the tourism segment of active and hiking tours around the world. In addition to cycling and trekking trips, the company also specializes in hiking study trips and long-distance trips. In 2017, over 62,000 guests traveled with the tour operator worldwide. The company is represented in over 1,000 travel agencies and 23 representative offices across Germany. The tour operator has been cooperating with the DER Deutsches Reisebüro group since September 2011 and has been using their branch network. Wikinger Reisen currently has 150 permanent employees, plus over 300 freelance tour guides .
Company history
As the head of the Hans-Niermann House in Rheine , Hans-Georg Kraus has been organizing hiking and bus trips, especially for youth groups, since 1961 . In 1967 he founded the non-profit association Club Travel for Young People .
In 1969, Renta-Gruppenreiseservice GmbH, the actual forerunner of Wikinger Reisen, was founded by Hans-Georg Kraus. The main focus of business activity was on the organization of youth group trips to other European countries. The company was so successful with group tours that one mid-1970s own chartered planes of type DC-9 Douglas for the routes to Trondheim and Helsinki could take under contract.
After the founding family moved from Rheine to Hagen, the GmbH was restructured in 1972 and renamed Wikinger Reisen. In addition to trips for young people, mainly group trips within Germany and bus trips to neighboring countries as well as Scandinavia and Iceland were now also offered for other age groups . The company philosophy, which is still valid today, is based on trips in small groups, away from the major tourist centers, led by trained guides, was developed in the 1970s. The first tour with tents and land rovers started in the summer of 1972 to Iceland. In 1973, the first individual tours by car to Scandinavia and from 1985 hiking tours were offered - the first program was on La Gomera .
The company had until the 1990s fixed contract holiday homes in the Norwegian Todalen and Surnadalen and the Swedish Skagersbrunn. Since 1977 - following the general travel trend of Germans - long-distance trips to Africa , North and South America have been increasingly offered. According to the travel concept, the accommodation was usually quite simple, mostly in the form of tent camps and huts.
Since 1981 adventure trips to Asia and New Zealand and Australia have also been added to the program. In the 1980s, the demand for organized group travel for young people decreased, so the program was abandoned in 1990. At the same time, concepts for individual adventure travel, especially for young people, were developed (e.g. Interrail + ferry). In 2007 the first Viking hotel was opened in Tenerife . In recent years special attention has been paid to the training and further education of tour guides. Almost all of the company's tour guides hold degrees with a geological , geographical , biological or art-historical focus.
In 1999, Hans Georg Kraus handed over management to his son Daniel Kraus.
Social and ecological commitment
Wikinger Reisen is committed to the preservation and promotion of numerous ecological and geo-tourism projects. Wikinger Reisen was one of the first sponsors of the Ruhr Area Geopark and, through the sponsorship, made it possible to complete a section of the GeoRoute Ruhr , the Kaisberg Geopfad and the geological profiles at the Deilbachtal and Löwental.
Since 1980 the company has been committed to specific social projects in the countries visited, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America . In 1985, the Society for the Promotion of Specific Development Projects was founded, which was integrated into the Georg Kraus Foundation established by the company 's founder in 2005 . The first concrete project for self-help was an appeal for donations to buy a water buffalo and a plow for a village community in Luzon ( Philippines ).
From 1991 to the beginning of the new millennium, the company worked with the non-profit, Ecuadorian non-governmental organization Jatun Sacha Foundation , which is committed to the preservation of tropical land and water ecosystems . In addition to the purchase of rainforest , the establishment of a health station in the jungle was financed.
Wikinger Reisen has been cooperating with WWF Germany since 2013 . The aim of the cooperation should be to promote sustainability in the travel sector.
The company's founder, Hans Georg Kraus, transferred 20% of the company's shares to the foundation named after his father, which continues to support numerous social and ecological projects in travel destinations, the development of sustainable tourism and projects to promote living together in old age.
Trivia
During a tour of Scandinavia in 1970, a bus driver stole the group's travel fund and left the tourists behind. When the man was caught after a manhunt by Interpol , all the money had already been spent.
In 1997, the company became known in the media when a group of four Germans were kidnapped not far from Sanaa in Yemen and held captive for 10 days.
Awards
Company founder Hans-Georg Kraus was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2009 for his social and entrepreneurial commitment .
Various travel offers from the company have been awarded the Golden Palm by the magazine Geo at the International Tourism Exchange in recent years , such as the 2007 trekking trip to the Kingdom of Lesotho (1st prize) and the themed Portugal trip in 2009 as a guest in the traditional slate villages of the Pinhal ( 2nd prize).
literature
- Eva Bender: 40 years of Wikinger Reisen (company chronicle), Hagen 2009, 70 pages, under company chronicle (PDF; 4.5 MB), available online (January 24, 2013)
- Environmental Protection Service GmbH: The green book of tourism. Environmental protection activities of German and international tourism , Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety [Ed.], Berlin 1996
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology: Research report No. 591: Basic study of leisure and vacation market hiking , Berlin 2010, p. 114 Archived copy ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked . Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 4.6 MB), accessed on January 31, 2013
- ↑ Market leader for hiking holidays shows double-digit growth - over 13 percent more guests . Tourism-Insider online magazine website, November 29, 2011. Accessed January 18, 2013.
- ^ Cooperation between the German Hiking Association and Wikinger Reisen (PDF; 38 kB). German Hiking Association , March 24, 2011. Accessed January 21, 2013.
- ↑ Branches and partner companies , accessed on March 20, 2013
- ↑ Cooperation between Wikinger Reisen and DER ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , touristik aktuell dated September 12, 2011, accessed on January 31, 2013
- ^ Eva Bender: 40 years of Wikinger Reisen (company chronicle), Hagen 2009, 70 p., Company chronicle page 6f. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 4.5 MB), accessed on January 24, 2013.
- ↑ Eva Bender: 40 years Wikinger Reisen (company chronicle), Hagen 2009, 70 p., Company chronicle page 8 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 4.5 MB), accessed on January 24, 2013.
- ↑ Geopfad Kaisberg with the descriptions of the information boards ( Memento of the original from August 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed January 23, 2013
- ↑ More than just an adventure , Deutsches Ärzteblatt, 1999, accessed on January 25, 2013
- ↑ Wikinger Reisen and WWF Germany start partnership for more sustainable travel wwf.de
- ↑ Wikinger Reisen & WWF Germany are strategic partners wikinger-reisen.de
- ↑ Company chronicle 2009 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 4.5 MB), accessed on January 24, 2013
- ↑ Return of the German hostages from Yemen, April 9, 1997 , Berliner Zeitung, accessed on January 24, 2013
- ↑ Award of the Golden Palm 2007 , accessed on January 25, 2013
