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Given the right tour company, an educational tour or field-trip will make your school year be an "even better" experience.
Decide upon your field-trip objectives i.e.: Language? History? Social Studies? Theater? Music? Culture in general? Fun?
Choose a destination that will complement your objectives.
Float the idea past your administration, if the trip will be school sanctioned you need their authorization.
Discreetly gage student/parent/community interest.
Secure your trip dates ASAP as you may be competing with other trips or school sanctioned activities.
Make sure that your selection of dates does not fall into a school exam or Provincial/State testing period.
YOU ARE NOW READY TO CHOOSE YOUR TOUR COMPANY.
Choose a company that does only educational tours for students.
Ask around to find out who people are choosing and why.
Read the brochures, visit the web sites, and meet the reps at the teacher conferences.
Take the time to talk to the tour company staff. Ask them some tough questions...
- How long have they been selling tour packages to your specific destination?
- Has the person you are talking to ever personally lead a student tour?
- Can the person tell you something profound and interesting about the destinations in questions?
- Has the person participated in all of the activities, eaten at all of the restaurants, and slept at the hotels which they are proposing?
- Does the person have any background in your objective areas? Does anyone in their office?
- For instance, if you have chosen a language tour, do they speak the language or do they speak a second language?
- Does the person you are speaking to know the president of the company?
- Has the president of the company personally lead more than one or two student tours?
- Does the president still go out and lead tours?
- Do they or the president understand adolescents in a group (a very specific entity).
Request information packages. Do they arrive in a timely manner? Do they contain relevant information?
Call the companies again. If you get a different person can this new person help you? If not, what happens when "your person" is unavailable?
Ask the company the following questions...
- What is your hotel (if not on itinerary). Is the space guaranteed? Will you all be on the same floor? are there balconies?Adjoining rooms?
- Who will be the motorcoach carrier? Have they worked with them before? Why do they choose them? Are the drivers good with students? Request a valid insurance certificate.
- If the drive is in excess of 10 hours will there be two drivers? If not, why?
- Is the itinerary flexible? Can you change it without penalty? Can you adapt it if you hear about something you like (without penalty)?
- Who will be your tour leader? Do they hire and train their own tour leader staff? If no, how do they know that the tour leader will be appropriate for teenagers?
- Will the tour leader be with the group at every activity, meal and overnight in the hotel?
- While you are on the road can you reach a company representative instantly, 24/7 (not voice mail)?
- Is this number available to your administration? The parents? The students?
Once you have narrowed your decision to one or two companies request references.
When you speak to these references ask them if they are paid by the company in question.
Choose Jumpstreet and present your information to the board (if necessary). When you present the documentation to the board, simply present the info we have sent, along with our board letter (which is available in our online Tour Planner) normally this is quite adequate.
Once you have received the necessary authorization, send a trip introduction letter out to the parents (again the necessary documentation is available in our online Tour Planner).
At this point if you have chosen Jumpstreet the hard part will be over. Between our online Tour Planner, our super competent office staff, and our hand picked Jumpstreet trained tour leaders, the rest will be a breeze!
Cautionary notes
The preceding information is intended as a rough guide to better equip consumers in making educated decisions.
Avoid giving out your home phone (until you have chosen your company), as some companies' sales staff call so often it is giving our industry a bad name.
If a tour company markets themselves as the cheapest they are probably using the cheapest motorcoaches available...as the motorcoach is a tour's biggest expense.
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