Project Expedition hosts Quarterly Coffee Chats hosted by Kristina Statler, with sales support and training. Each meeting discusses different topics with different members of the Project Expedition team that advisors typically don’t hear from on a day to day basis.
For this Coffee Chat, Kristina sat down with Hamish Gordon, our supply team lead, and two operating partners that advisors book all the time: Anna Persson, co-founder and COO of City Unscripted, and Charli Preston, Senior Partnerships Manager at Intrepid Travel, representing its day-tour brand, Urban Adventures. Here's what we learned during that Coffee Chat.
Hamish's team searches for operators country by country and city by city, gives every one a detailed review before onboarding, and keeps checking after they go live: insurance every year, vendor calls every month, and program reviews every week for cancellation trends and advisor feedback. Programs that keep struggling get fixed or removed. His philosophy fits in one line: "I don't need 100 walking tours of Amsterdam. I need the best of the best at different price points." That means covering each destination's highlights at a range of budgets, then adding experiences you won't find elsewhere, like an Amsterdam tulip farm visit led by the farm's own head horticulturalist from our ELEVATE collection. New experiences are coming in fast too, from five new Alaska vendors ("We're selling a lot of fishing in Alaska, believe it or not") to fresh programs in Tahiti and Fiji.
Multi-day on Project Expedition comes in two forms: classic land packages, such as a trip through England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and shorter two- to three-day programs that connect to the start or end of a cruise. As Hamish put it, many guests can't take three weeks off, "but they can afford to take two weeks: seven days on a cruise, a few days pre and post. Makes a great program." Ready-made multi-day trips can be booked directly by FIT travelers, and our custom groups team can build one from scratch, with or without hotels, if you don't see what you need.
Check out our Multiday options here!
City Unscripted launched 44 new cities in the second half of 2025 and now offers private, personalized experiences in 106 cities. Japan is the number-one country sold on Project Expedition, and Anna isn't surprised. "You land in Tokyo, everything looks alien, you have jet lag, you just don't know where to go, and having somebody who holds your hand and shows you around is always good." The real surprise was Europe's secondary cities. "Zurich has been the biggest surprise for me," she said. In Italy, Rome and Milan are steady, "but the real performers are Bologna and Siena," and day trips like Tokyo to Hakone are booming. Repeat visitors, Anna explained, want to "get a little bit out of the center."
Their top seller with us is the Tokyo Private and Personalized Half-Day Tour, and the secret is the personalization form. Once it's filled in, the team builds a custom route and matches travelers with the right host: "For teenage children, you need somebody a bit funky, a bit energetic, whereas for history-passionate travelers, you need somebody who's got the deep knowledge." Because every tour is private, hosts can change the plan on the day, whether that means slowing down in the summer heat or following a detour that turns out to be the highlight.
Check out City Unscripted’s Tokyo Private and Personalized Half-Day Tour here!
Urban Adventures recently launched three Uncommon Day Tours in Paris, Venice, and Barcelona, created by local guides to help travelers "experience these cities beyond the crowds." Charli calls them ideal for repeat visitors who've seen the major sights. Her surprise best seller is Athens, where most of the brand's private food, history, and mythology tours sell well on our platform. "Actually, Project Expedition is where we see most of our sales," she said.
Their top seller with us is the Venice Cicchetti and Wine Tour: two and a half to three hours, five glasses of premium wine, and cicchetti at locally run bars, with 11am and 5pm departures that work for port days and city breaks. The twist is a traditional gondola crossing of the Grand Canal, the same ferry Venetians have used for generations. Charli's best tip applies to any food tour: book it for night one or two, because “a lot of travelers end up going back to some of the bars and restaurants they visited as part of the tour.”
Check out Urban Adventures’s Venice Cicchetti and Wine Tour here!
For port days and pre- and post-cruise stays, both suppliers recommend short, flexible tours. City Unscripted will build a private experience around any time window: "All you need to do is tell us from which time to which time, what interests, and what pace you'd like." Anna's one request is that you don't skip the personalization form (77% of advisors already fill it in). Most Urban Adventures tours run three to four hours, so clients get local food and culture without losing a whole day, and Charli says New Orleans, Boston, and Tokyo are fast-growing picks for cruise passengers. With its own local DMC, Intrepid can often adjust start times on private tours to fit a ship's schedule.
City Unscripted is launching six new secondary Italian cities, some near cruise ports. Urban Adventures is finalizing 2027 plans and aims to grow from 40 to 60 destinations. Hamish's team is adding more U.S. supply (keep those advisor referrals coming), more in the South Pacific, and new programs along the Amazon and in South American cruise ports like Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Ushuaia. Plus, Blacklane can now be booked by the hour in the transfer tool. "Advisors have been asking for it for a while," Kristina said.
Check out Blacklane's book by the hour here!
Want to hear the stories in their own words? The full Coffee Chat is in the Knowledge Center under Conversations, or you can watch the recording here. You can go to the Knowledge Center on our website, then click “Conversations” and scroll down to find this recording!
Thank you to Anna, Charli, and Hamish for sharing their insight. See you at the next quarterly Coffee Chat!
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