Youth Travel Archives - EBI International Consulting Group

Strategy and Leadership

International students

Jan 21, 2022 | International students, Youth Travel

The latest WYSTC news (Jan 14, 2022) reports that the US government intends to impose more costs (i.e. higher fees) on the ability of international students to access the US post-secondary market. EBI has been engaged in the global student market since its founding more than 25 years ago. We have always viewed the international student market at both the business and the philosophical levels as extremely attractive.
Forty years ago in Canada, international students were seen by most post-secondary institutions as a nice-to-have option that somehow made the student body more exciting and sophisticated because of its internationalization.

Today, many Canadian post-secondary institutions are dependent upon the international students to cover the shortfalls in their budgets that governments are no longer willing or able to cover. The international student market is a multibillion-dollar business. However, while the business side of the global student market is significant, the philosophical side has greater importance. Since the days of the Academy of ancient Athens, ideas developed in educational institutions have crossed borders, inspired creativity and transformed the world we live in. Whether it is Adam Smith or Karl Marx, the attempts to block intellectual thought by closing borders and rejecting the outsider have consistently failed. When the Chinese emperor banned Zheng He from travelling the world, China’s slow decline commenced.

Throughout history, the need to engage and embrace the thinking from around the globe has been central to humankind’s advancement. That need has never been greater in today’s world of climate change and national belligerence.

So EBI is firmly against unreasonable or excessive impediments to the free flow of students to study and work in other countries. The US, over the years, has been the largest recipient of international students on the planet. Silicon Valley, in many respects, would not be where it is today without the infusion of former international students. So even an increase in visa fees for admission to the USA seems to us a step that will ultimately hurt the country it is supposing to help. Canada has been a general beneficiary of these actions. Sill, it is in no one’s interest who believes in the fundamentals espoused 2000 years in the Academy to have the USA continue to build barriers to access their post-secondary institutions.

In the meantime, EBI Group will continue to assist international students in accessing post-secondary institutions in Canada.

Jan 21, 2022 No Comments

WYSTC – World Youth and Student Travel Conference

Youth Travel

Nov 9, 2021 | Youth Travel

The World Youth and Student Travel Conference celebrated its 30th anniversary this year in Lisbon, Portugal. Some may ask how the number one travel trade conference for the youth and student sector first came about. As a core founder and driving force for its creation, I will tell you.

The Birth of the International Student Travel Conference

The International Student Travel Conference (ISTC) was created after World War 2 as students traveled further afield. Student Unions in universities in Europe, North America, Japan, and Australia created travel companies to help their fellow students travel beyond the borders of their home countries. For example, the hippie trail in the early 1970s meant you could get on a bus in Trafalgar Square in central London and seven weeks later disembark in Kathmandu, Nepal, after travelling overland through Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. It was a very popular route.

Around this time, a man named Zvi Ravon developed the concept of the Brown Airline Ticket. For the student travel agencies, this meant they did not have to pay the airline until the coupon was lifted instead of the normal airline ticket, which required agencies to pay the airlines within two weeks. This technical development greatly improved the student travel agency’s cash flow.

The student travel companies would gather annually to trade and discuss the future. The ISTC was born from these movements. By 1991, the ISTC had grown to cover most of the world, and the largest student travel companies were generating $500 million and more per year in revenue. ISTC ran a Clearing House, produced airline tickets and student cards, and coordinated student exchanges and insurance. These generated sufficient funds to cover the annual conference costs.

Federation of International Youth Travel Operators (FIYTO)

The Federation of International Youth Travel Operators represented those organizations that were not student travel agencies and their affiliates. Many of the FIYTO members were language schools and much smaller operators than the student travel agencies. However, many of the ISTC members were also members of FIYTO. FIYTO’s primary revenue source was the annual trade show, membership fees, and a youth card. The annual conference was critical to its financial well-being.

The merger of student and youth travel conferences

Both organizations were based in Copenhagen, Denmark, and were no more than 10km apart. In 1991, when I arrived as the Director-General, the organizations did not speak to each other and were seen as rivals. My counterpart at FIYTO, Peter de Jong, had also arrived in the same year. Neither of us had a history with these organizations.

I took it upon myself to meet with Peter, and it became clear to both of us that running two conferences at different times did not make a huge amount of good sense. Since FIYTO was primarily a conference manager and had a larger number of participants, it made sense they would do most of the coordination of the event. We decided to call it the World Youth and Student Travel Conference, and the first one took place in September 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. More than 600 delegates showed up for the first WYSTC conference.

The merger of the two organizations

Neither organization was initially keen on a more fully integrated merger, although general discussions ran on for many years. It was not until the WYSTC conference in Toronto in 2004 that a formal merger of the two organizations took place. Financial pressures on both organizations drove this, but particularly FIYTO at the time. While FIYTO struggled with some bad investments, the ISTC members were under growing pressure from the airlines and the internet, making the original brown ticket redundant.

World Youth and Student Travel Conference 2021

Challenged by Covid-19, WYSTC 2021 was a hybrid of on-site and virtual trading. The idea of virtual trading did not and could not have existed 30 years ago. The fact that it was a success, and the focus of trading is now international student exchanges rather than airline packages, shows how much has changed in 30 years. At the same time, the need for businesses with common interests and requirements to trade amongst themselves has not changed and is unlikely to change much into the future.

Nov 9, 2021 No Comments

The need to bring travel up to scratch again after the long Covid-19 Winter

Covid

Jan 26, 2021 | Covid, Travel Safety, Youth Travel

With the 2nd dose of the Covid-19 vaccine already being given in some countries, travel can start gearing up to re-opening again in 4-6 months from now. It has been a crazy year of numerous uncalled stops, openings, all in very short notices, and the world of travel has changed dramatically, maybe in some irreversible ways – changed forever.

There are talks of issuing a “green passport” to those vaccinated, what about issuing a “green clearance” for each travel establishment deemed as safe enough to use or stay? Current self-declaration generic labels are not the real assurance needed. They lack particularity, lack depth and adaptation to the attributes and weaknesses of each specific place.

Here at EBI Consulting we highly recommend these steps to be considered now:

Have your own pre-Covid 19 operations SOPs (or norms) first carefully reviewed now, and if needed – have them completed and revised to meet the new threats posed by the pandemic. There might be a need for some dramatic changes in some facets, not just cosmetic minor updates.
Have it written down logically, not keeping it just verbal or in your head – in order to satisfy both regulators who are likely to demand much stricter regulation and also to a much fussier clientele – looking for extra assurances of safety measures, before placing a booking.
Conduct a comprehensive quality assurance and safety audit now, before re-opening and after a short re-igniting phase of your business. Verification by a 3rd party, independent audit, would be ideally the best.
Appoint local resources to be trained as “safety champions” for your organization. Any responsible staff member to check and verify – have them qualified for this task.

These steps will give greater confidence to the travelling public who will be nervous about venturing out. The greater the confidence, the greater the return in both the numbers of clients and the revenue they bring.

We invite you to contact us and test out our dedicated documentation and audit skills to help you have your business truly seriously verified, benchmarked and then improved.

https://ebiconsulting.ca/risk-management-self-assessment-tool/

Jan 26, 2021 No Comments

Hostel Safety during Covid-19

Covid

Nov 20, 2020 | Covid, Risk Management, Travel Safety, Youth Travel

As full members of WYSETC we applaud the confederation’s initiative as outlined in the weekly newsletter of September 25, 2020, to develop the WYSE COVID-19 safe accommodation declaration as a good first step in ensuring guests are assured of a safe and comfortable stay in hostels. We were happy to offer our expertise as contributors, however small, this summer as the confederation was trying to finalize the concept. Furthermore, as the Canadian representative on ISO/PAS 5643 — Measures to reduce the spread of coronavirus, an ISO committee focused on managing COVID-19 in tourism, we believe we have every interest in ensuring the seal succeeds. However, we also are concerned about the practical limits of such an approach. EBI Group is in the business of doing customized risk management and quality assurance audits activities, and this seems particularly apposite for our comments below; and as such, we offer the following observations:

The WYSE-TC program is self-declaration. This is in contrast to ISO standards certification procedures, which set out a clear set of processes and rules in order for an operator to be successfully certified, and clear conditions are attached to this certification; however, the anti-COVID-19 sanitary seals do not have clear, detailed rules for obtaining and keeping the declaration. We would encourage WYSETC to clarify the audit process and requirements, as well as how the weekly spot check would be carried out. As well, we would encourage participating hostels to invest in a third-party audit with us or some other professional firm to help build capacity and refine policies and procedures.

The newsletter mentions that “[i]f an accommodation provider is not able to commit to the required standards; it will be removed from the scheme.” We suggest that it be clearer that this would be indicated to travellers.

Sanitary labels are essentially newly described protocols to tackle and prevent COVID-19 spread. They are quite generic, and therefore a particular degree of customization is needed in our opinion to adapt them individually for each hotel, hostel, resort chain, or other establishment seeking this certification. We have not identified such a developed approach yet. We would encourage participating operators to engage with a specialized firm that can handle such projects.

We look forward to the implementation of the WYSETC plan to help tourism businesses recover from this unprecedented challenge.

Nov 20, 2020 No Comments

International Education – A Bright Future

Travel Safety

Nov 19, 2020 | Travel Safety, Youth Travel

The article written by Dr. Allan Goodman from the Institute for International Education in the WYSE Weekender of November 6 is relevant and positive. EBI Consulting, which was founded 25 years ago to help international students from the Caribbean, Africa and the USA access Canadian educational institutions, has seen this almost inexorable growth in international education and celebrates its value.

The desire to learn by young and old alike is surely the most positive sign of the world heading in the right direction. Whether it is pandemics or autocrats, the desire to learn and more importantly, to travel and have the learning experience in other parts of the world, sustains our hope for a positive and bright future. And while the pandemic has forced the learning experience online, we believe this a temporary and necessary phenomenon. Students wish to interact with other students and experience the diversity of other cultures. Online learning, for all its technical prowess, cannot provide that experience. It cannot sate the natural curiosity of the human spirit that is on all of us but found most strongly in the young.

EBI Consulting Group is committed to ensuring those young travel and learn but travel and learn safely.

Nov 19, 2020 No Comments

Managing financial risks in crisis mode

Consulting

Mar 22, 2020 | Consulting, Risk Management, Youth Travel

We are currently living through very turbulent times wherever we may be on this planet.

Who knows what our businesses will look like on the other side, always assuming we make it? Such conjecture though is for tomorrow, now is the time to devote all our energy to battening down the hatches and doing all we can just to survive. The time for DISASTER RECOVERY will (hopefully) come later. For now it’s all about survival and in this context the thing that should be at the forefront of everyone’s mind is CASH IS KING.

Managing financial risks in crisis mode is all about cash flow. For many businesses this will be the most acute financial crisis they have ever faced. Every organisation is juggling remote working, staff absences (or immediate heightened risk of absences) and income uncertainty and this is especially so for those businesses operating in the front-line travel and hospitality sector.

Be realistic about how much any crisis management activities might cost. Review your upcoming costs and delay any non-essential costs to protect cash flow. Any planned expenditure for now should almost certainly be put on hold, at least until the dust settles and a way forward can be clearly seen. With so much uncertainty around cash flow, forecasts need to be prepared under various scenarios. We are in unknown territory so there is a need to think through some worst case scenarios. ‘What if…’ questions have never been more relevant.

And finally before making any drastic step-change decisions, ensure you have considered all ways of managing cash through operational measures, borrowing etc and have taken professional advice if necessary. You might not have been, but others have lived through such crises before and lived to tell the tale!

As “been there, done that” professionals, we’re here for you.

Mar 22, 2020 No Comments