Globus Enters Student Market

Globus family of brands, one of the world’s largest domestic and international tour operators, recently launched a new division that has the educational travel community talking. The privately held Littleton, Colorado-based company has entered the student market with Student Discoveries, a new program that provides custom educational products for student groups worldwide, offering an alternative to traditional educational travel options.

Michael Lundquist, national group sales manager, said having been in business for more than 80 years and already having worked with student groups through its current brands, it just made sense for Globus to start Student Discoveries.

“In recent years we’ve noticed many student groups were coming to our tour department asking us to provide custom quotes on student groups,” Lundquist said.  “We’ve already worked with student groups before and we think that we’re an operator that educators and parents can trust.”

With input from both students and educators, Globus family of brands has created Student Discoveries as an educational experience that the educator can customize – a service designed for the specific needs of the group.

“We’re backed by $11 million in consumer protection and we have offices worldwide that provide us with more knowledge of what’s going on in all of our destinations,” Lundquist said.  “We have free marketing collateral to help promote group tours and we also have a sales team that manages in the field and assists with a very hands-on approach.”

With Something New Comes the Challenges

Lundquist shared that starting Student Discoveries initially was fairly easy, especially when reaching out to travel agents working in this market; they embraced it and worked with a lot of the schools in the area. But now as Student Discoveries is trying to expand, there are challenges that Lundquist and his team at Globus are dealing with.

“First of all, this is a very competitive market, one of the most competitive markets we’ve really entered new,” Lundquist said.  “There are a lot of big names in this market, so getting our name out there is a challenge that we continue to struggle with.  But it’s a good struggle.”

Another difficulty is the fact that the student market has a long sales process.  Lundquist stressed that these relationships take a long time to build – you really have to articulate to the people you talk with and let them understand what it is that you’re offering and why they should consider doing something new, he said.

“A lot of them have different relationships with very strong operators so it’s a process,” Lundquist said. “But we’re pushing through. We’re attending trade shows and getting our name out there, so it’s a fun challenge.”

The Student Discoveries Product

Student Discoveries offers suggested itineraries for various destinations that clients can put their own twist on, creating their own personalized, custom trips.

“The theory behind Student Discoveries is that we have a superior customizable product to what’s out there currently in the market,” Lundquist said. “We typically offer more inclusions, more educational experiences, and we also allow educators to add their own activities or excursions based on their groups’ interest.”

A special educational experience that Student Discoveries offers is “World-Class Moments,” which Lundquist explains is interactive and a perfect balance of learning and fun. Each World-Class Moment program is designed to match class curricula in social studies, math, science and language arts, and is offered both in U.S. and Europe destinations.

During the trip, each student is given a card containing an outline of a person, place or event highlighted in the itinerary, a task to complete at the destination. From there, students can make presentations to the group or use the information to learn more about the attraction and chosen subject. Student Discoveries has four different World-Class Moments themes to offer – Flash Forward, Cultural Cuisine, Footsteps of Legends and Active Learning.

“There are all sorts of World-Class Moments that we can do in different destinations,” Lundquist said. “But the key is really that we customize it with that educator.”

Some of Student Discoveries’ most popular destinations are Washington D.C., Boston, Philadelphia, New York City, Italy, London Paris and Spain. Lundquist said eighth grade is usually the starting point for student groups to go out, and those groups tend to want to see the historic East with Washington D.C. and coastal Virginia being No. 1. As for high school and college, there is a lot of demand for Europe.

Each group has a tour director and a driver, and Student Discoveries provides a local guide who knows more about the particulars of various sites within the chosen city.

“This allows the educator to be more like a group leader and they have that free time to actually spend with the students,” Lundquist said. “It helps them to really focus on the group instead of worrying about all the details and logistics of the trip.”

As far as types of groups, Student Discoveries has been targeting performing arts groups and has seen requests from these types of groups worldwide. They’ve done everything from a large band group traveling to Asia to singing groups in Europe and acting groups going behind the scenes at theaters in London or New York City. Lundquist said they find the performing arts groups’ requests to be very specific so they tend to be all over the map.

Lundquist said the Globus family of brands is 100 percent behind Student Discoveries and that it’s been a pleasure working with student groups.

“It’s really fun to be involved with these groups,” Lundquist said. “They’re some of the best groups to work with because when they come back, you always get good feedback and get to hear what they did. It’s really been a fun experience for me.”

—Nancy Wolens