2014 Student Travel Planning Guide Preview

9.95

$

2014 EDITION

How to Plan the Best Youth Trips Negotiating Student Group Flights Choosing A Volunteer Program Provider

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Fundraising Tips ■

Student Travel Security

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Tech Tools for Easy Travel

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Hotel How -To’s A Premier Tourism Marketing publication • www.studenttravelplanningguide.com

VOL. 5 • 2014 EDITION

contents 6

Making Students’ Dreams Come True

28

Editor’s message to travel organizers

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Tech Tools for Easy Travel

BY

LANCE HARRELL

Tweets, Flickr and mobile apps

10 Best of the Best

BY

BECKY NEEMS

Listing top attractions in America, by category

16 Choosing a Volunteer Program Provider BY

NARELLE WEBBER

Find a reliable organization for your next project

20 Playing the Airfare Game

BY

16

ERIC HOWARD

Advice on getting the best rates for your group

26 Student Travel Security

BY ANDREW

FYDRYSZEWSKI

Professional security firms ensure student safety

International Student Volunteers (ISV)

28 Re-defining Adventure Travel for the Student Group Market BY

MELISSA MCKEE

Expert tips on choosing the right company and destination

32 Hotel How To’s From negotiating group rates to disciplinary guidelines

36 11 Fundraising Tips Smart strategies for raking in the cash

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SPECIAL SECTION Student Groups Love Branson, Missouri Making music in the Ozarks

©iStockphoto.com/gchutka

44 Directory Resources A roster of destinations and businesses that welcome student tour groups ON THE COVER: COSI (Center of Science and Industry), one of America’s top interactive science centers, is a prime attraction in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo Courtesy of COSI) Photo courtesy of G Adventures

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Student Travel Planning Guide

studenttravelplanningguide.com

Randy Mink

Making Students’ Dreams Come True

Vol. 5, No. 1, 2014 Edition

Editorial Office or me, planning the trip is half the fun.

possible trip, features a slew of new arti-

Whether it’s for a group or venturing

cles written by experts in their fields. If

out on my own, I enjoy deciding where to

you’ve always wanted to organize a vol-

go and ferreting out the best deals.

unteer trip, see “Choosing a Volunteer

F

I like weighing the options, collecting

Program Provider” by Narelle Webber of

practical information and just getting in the

International Student Volunteers. G Ad-

mood by reading up on the history and cul-

ventures’ Melissa McKee also inspires us

ture of a place. My goal: an action-packed

to kick it up a notch with her piece on ad-

itinerary where every minute counts.

venture travel opportunities, while Eric

Being on the road, most group leaders

Howard of StudentUniverse navigates the

would agree, is even more rewarding. And

group airfare maze. Lance Harrell, our

the best part is seeing the world through

own director of online operations, offers

the eyes of our students as they experi-

time-saving ideas in “Tech Tools for Easy

ence places they’ve only read about.

Travel.”

Classroom lessons come alive in the U.S.

As Lance reminds us, the Student

Capitol or Tower of London. Everything

Travel Planning Guide is a multi-platform

seems to click as students try out their

resource providing both print and online

fractured French at a Paris crepe stand or

solutions for group planners. On our newly

journey back two millennia on a tour of the

redesigned online portal, you can perform

Roman Forum.

searches for inspirational and practical in-

I’ve had the satisfaction of traveling with

formation based on desired destination

American students in Europe, Africa and

and/or type of supplier (attraction, accom-

the United States − trips where someone

modations, tour operator, dining or trans-

else did the planning. One summer, I led

portation). It can be accessed by tablet or

20 students to the top of Mount Kiliman-

smartphone as well as computer. When

jaro, Africa’s highest mountain. Showing

you join the Student Travel Planning Guide

French and Belgian students the sights of

community you can access trips and plan-

New York, Chicago and other places in the

ning tools online that are unavailable to

eastern half of the U.S. provided insights

non-members, as well as manage all as-

into my own country.

pects of your membership, including print

But I’ve also been at the back end,

and newsletter subscriptions, email notifi-

working for several years in a student

cations and more. Visit studenttravelplan-

travel office that sold flights, rail passes

ningguide.com for full details.

and youth hostel cards. For one educa-

We hope this annual guide, combined

tional tour company that specialized in

with our online resources, will inspire you

Washington, D.C. trips for junior high

to plan the best trip ever. We do appreciate

school groups, I spent my days writing and

your feedback, so let us know how we can

proofing itineraries—and arranging the oc-

help with the homework.

casional hotel pizza party or airport box lunch. Details, details, so many details!

Happy traveling,

This fifth annual Student Travel Planning Guide, aimed at educators and other youth leaders who want to plan the best 6

Student Travel Planning Guide

Randy Mink Managing Editor

621 Plainfield Road, Suite 406 Willowbrook, IL 60527 P 630.794.0696 • F 630.794.0652 info@ptmgroups.com

Publisher – Jeffrey Gayduk jeff@ptmgroups.com

Managing Editor – Randy Mink randy@ptmgroups.com

Contributing Writers Andrew Fydryszewski Lance Harrell Eric Howard Melissa McKee Becky Neems Narelle Webber

Director, Design & Production – Robert Wyszkowski rob@ptmgroups.com

Advertising Sales Office Phone: 630.794.0696 advertising@ptmgroups.com www.ptmgroups.com

The publisher accepts unsolicited editorial matter, as well as advertising, but assumes no responsibility for statements made by advertisers or contributors. Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information published, but the publisher makes no warranty that listings are free of error. The publisher is not responsible for the return of unsolicited photos or manuscripts.

Student Travel Planning Guide (ISSN 2154-4905) is published annually by Premier Tourism Marketing, Inc., 621 Plainfield Rd., Suite 406, Willowbrook, IL 60527. Postage paid at Willowbrook, IL and Lebanon Junction, KY. The magazine is distributed free to youth group travel organizers and travel suppliers catering to the market. Single copies for all others is $9.95.

Send Address Change to: Premier Tourism Marketing, Inc. 621 Plainfield Rd., Suite 406, Willowbrook, IL 60527

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publication

All rights reserved. Materials may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher.

studenttravelplanningguide.com

Tech Tools for Easy Travel

Tweets, Flickr and mobile apps save time and headaches for the 21st century group travel leader

By Lance Harrell lthough I doubt you are still doing your trip research with books in the library and organizing everything using pencil and paper, everyone has a different level of awareness regarding the technological options available for pretrip planning and on-tour assistance. The following are what we consider to be some of the better solutions available to make your job easier and your student group trip safe and enjoyable for everyone.

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Social Tools You’re very likely familiar with Twitter, but even if you are not, your students definitely are. However, known to fewer is a specialized service Twitter provides that can be very useful to the group travel leader, Group Tweet.

Enabling up to 100,000 contributors to tweet into the same account, you can have all of your students sign up for this service and use it to create your own private Twitter-based message board. Want to send a reminder to everyone that they have 15 minutes to meet in the hotel lobby to catch the bus? Don’t go around knocking on 50 hotel room doors, just post a Tweet to the group. Need to notify everyone of a schedule change that occurred while the students were exploring the city on their free time? Just post a Tweet to the group. Someone left their hat on the bus and you don’t know who it belongs to? Don’t gather everyone together to find out, just post a Tweet and have the student come to you.

Gone are the days of post-trip gatherings where everyone brings their mountains of developed photos and the group combs through them for shots that they missed. However, the desire to share photos remains, and with 50 students on a trip, each with a camera, that means that your group will generate a tremendous number of photos. What is the best way for everyone to benefit from those students who happen to have the quickest hands at the right moment and capture the perfect pictures? There are many photo sharing services online today, but with their recent upgrade to 1 Terabyte of free storage space (that’s 1000GB), their intuitive mobile applications, and the ease with which you can create private photo galleries and share them only with the people you choose, our recommendation goes to Flickr.

Practical Mobile Applications

Apps for mobile devices can be helpful companions on the road and in the trip-planning stages.

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Student Travel Planning Guide

While both Group Tweet and Flickr have a mobile app component, they are social in nature and are designed to be used by the whole group. The following is a list of purely informational mobile apps that will help you as the group travel leader.

Smart Traveler App. The official State Department app for U.S. travelers, Smart Traveler provides you with easy access to studenttravelplanningguide.com

With the Wi-Fi Finder app, travelers can find a nearby internet connection.

address or current location, no matter where in the world you are. The ATM Hunter lets you tailor your search on what you want to do. If you need to make a deposit or want to use your own bank to avoid fees, you can search for your specific bank’s ATMs. If you just need to pick up some cash, you can search for all nearby ATM locations.

The above services and apps are by no means an exhaustive list, with new ones coming out all the time. For more information, visit the Technology section of StudentTravelPlanningGuide.com. ■

frequently updated official information on every country in the world. This includes travel alerts, travel warnings, maps, U.S. embassy locations and more, all of which can be extremely valuable for the international group travel planner in both pre-trip information collection, such as noting visa requirements, and for on-trip information, like how to report a crime to local authorities.

GPS Tracker Pro. Keeping track of one teenager is difficult enough, but doing so for 50 can be a Herculean task. Since you are unlikely to separate students from their smartphones, you might as well use them as a tool to keep track of your group while on tour.

The GPS Tracker Pro app will allow you to form a group of contacts on your phone and then receive real-time information on the location of everyone in that group. Now you can feel more comfortable during your students’ scheduled “free time” and use it to set up check-in times and locations for With no spoken language, Blue Man Group is perfect for people of all when it is time to bring everyone back toages, languages, and cultures. This unique theatrical experience is a gether. form of entertainment like nothing else, guaranteed to be an outing WiFi Finder. Whether you are just travthat your school group will never forget. eling to another part of the United States or to an international destination, being occaNEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO LAS VEGAS sionally connected to the internet is considORLANDO NATIONAL TOUR ered a requirement for many travelers. This app contains an offline and online directory Appearing exclusively at sea onboard 1.800 BLUEMAN BLUEMAN.COM of WiFi hotspots and even has an active scanning tool that will allow you to find any WiFi signal within the range of your device.

Word Lens. Extremely useful for student groups traveling to international destinations, Word Lens translates printed words from one language to another with your smartphone’s video camera, in real time. No network connection needed. This app can be a lifesaver when the reading language skills of your group aren’t up to the task.

ATM Hunter. This is the fast and easy way for you to locate the closest ATM location. And because the ATM Hunter is location aware, there’s no need to input your

SUCCESS STARTS WITH

Scanrail/Bigstock.com

INSPIRATION

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