The World Youth Student and Educational (WYSE) Travel Confederation’s World Youth and Student Travel Conference (WYSTC) is the leading trade event for the global youth, student and educational travel industry.
Now in its 24th year, WYSTC was held this year in Cape Town, South Africa and brought together over 600 stakeholders operating in the youth, student and educational travel industry. WYSTC travels to a different destination each year to provide attendees first-hand experience of the topics and trends affecting youth and student travel within the host country and/or region. Given our role in both the student and group travel markets, we were able to present to the attendees both as part of a panel, and a standalone session.
Evan Becker, our Business Development Director, spoke on a panel on “Market trends: International Buyer Perspectives.” This session focused on what it takes to be a successful youth travel destination/product. Specifically, what youth travellers are looking for and how buyers select products/experiences and gauge customer expectations for target markets.
Evan talked about the top destinations for students this year (typical vs. up-and-coming), when students are buying and travelling per market, the most important considerations to student travellers when booking airfare and student travel trends.
Our Chief Commercial Officer Mike Cleary led a session on “the benefits of booking group travel” which focused on what group travel is and the benefits of booking group airfare, as well as tips to make the experience of getting the group from point A to point B a little easier.
The conference couldn’t have ended any better – we found out during the Global Youth Travel Awards ceremony that we were named the “best youth travel agent” for 2015! The winner in this category was determined solely by votes. It means so much to us that our users recognize how we truly understand and cater for the needs of young travellers and took the time to cast their votes.
We look forward to next year’s conference in Serbia! We hope to see you all there. But first, how could we not share footage from our experience cage diving with sharks in Cape Town?!