Contiki puts five Costa Rica episodes behind its Gen Z travel reset
Five vertical episodes and a redesigned trip website connect Contiki's Gen Z repositioning to a real Costa Rica itinerary.
A group trip makes a better story when the people on it are strangers. Someone gets out of their comfort zone, someone wants to go home, and the place they have all traveled to becomes the setting for a new friendship. The feeling is familiar to anyone who has watched a travel diary unfold in short clips, even if they have never booked a tour themselves.
That is the opening idea behind Contiki's On Contiki series, a five-part vertical microdrama set in Costa Rica. Four young strangers share a group trip, navigating jungle excursions, surf-town tensions and personal confessions. It gives the travel company something more human to show than another montage of beaches and hotel rooms.
The series, directed by filmmaker Gracie Otto, forms the entertainment centerpiece of Contiki's new GO WANDER positioning. The company is trying to reach Gen Z travelers who may associate the 64-year-old tour operator with the coach trips and party holidays of an earlier generation.
Table of contents
Jump to each section:
- Why Contiki made strangers the main characters
- How On Contiki brings a travel series to the feed
- What the new Travel Worlds are trying to change
- What marketers can learn from the microdrama bet
Why Contiki made strangers the main characters
The usual travel commercial starts with a destination. On Contiki starts with the people who might end up experiencing it together. Its four travelers arrive from different places, then spend five short episodes getting to know each other while traveling through Costa Rica. The drama is an interpretation of the kind of connection Contiki wants prospective customers to imagine on a real trip.
That storytelling choice matters because a guided group holiday asks someone to commit to unfamiliar company as well as an unfamiliar place. The series lets viewers see a version of that social experience before comparing itineraries or prices. Contiki's actual Best of Costa Rica itinerary is connected to the series on its campaign page, although the page does not prove that watching will lead to bookings.
Contiki chief customer officer Toni Ambler told Little Black Book that the campaign is also about replacing a narrow image of what its holidays look like. The company's top-selling trips, she said, include Croatia sailing and Greek Island itineraries, rather than the coach journeys still associated with the brand.
How On Contiki brings a travel series to the feed
The five chapters are designed for vertical viewing, giving the story a format closer to social entertainment than a traditional travel film. The episodes were shot by Otto in Costa Rica, where the scenery is part of the narrative but the relationships remain the focus.
GO WANDER was developed with Publicis Australia, which worked on the positioning and creative as well as the wider customer experience. Havas Media handles media partnerships involving TikTok and Google, while Herd MSL supports earned communications and Influential is involved in a creator program. That is a bigger undertaking than simply cutting a film into several social clips.
Other brands have already explored scripted social storytelling. Marc Jacobs used actor Rachel Sennott in The Scene, a fashion microdrama built around a chaotic attempt to reach the Met Gala, while fashion rental service Nuuly has developed episodic branded entertainment. Contiki's distinction is its direct link to a bookable travel experience: a viewer can explore the locations and activities portrayed in the episodes.
What the new Travel Worlds are trying to change
The campaign is only one part of a broader effort to change what customers find when they look up Contiki. Publicis Australia executives describe an overhaul of 750 website pages and the organization of 76 new or reimagined trips into eight Travel Worlds, allowing visitors to browse by different travel interests rather than only destinations.
The commercial challenge is retention. Ambler and Publicis Australia managing director Simone Waugh cited a customer net promoter score of 94 alongside a 24% repeat booking rate. Those are company-reported figures, not independently audited campaign results, and they describe the existing business rather than the impact of GO WANDER.
Waugh described the connection between marketing and operations in these words: “GO WANDER is an example of what can happen when business and brand strategy are developed hand in hand.” The website changes give that point substance. If the series persuades viewers that Contiki is more varied than they thought, the booking experience needs to show them where to go next.
What marketers can learn from the microdrama bet
A microdrama can earn several moments of attention instead of one, but the format is not automatically a travel-sales strategy. Each episode has to stand as a story while still making the destination and the travel product recognizable. The campaign also has to make it easy for a curious viewer to move from watching the cast to understanding the trips available.
There are two different outcomes to watch. One is whether Gen Z travelers begin to associate Contiki with more than the old party-bus image. The other is whether redesigned discovery and trip pages convert interest into bookings and repeat travel. Contiki has not disclosed audience viewing figures or booking results for the new series.
For brands, the interesting move is to make entertainment and product discovery part of the same experience without pretending the two are identical. On Contiki can show how traveling with strangers might feel. The real trip, its itinerary and the customer experience must deliver something worth returning for.
