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30+ "Career Gappers" Fuel Growth — A Market Report from the ICEF Work & Travel Forum

The work and travel sector continues to surge with year-over-year gains of 8% and nearly double the growth of the tourism market as a whole. The research firm Mintel measured the global work and travel market at £6 billion in 2005 and forecasts that the sector will reach £11 billion (US$22 billion or €15 billion) and two million trips per year by 2010.

Work experience tourism was in the spotlight in November as the
ICEF Work & Travel Forum debuted in its new location in Berlin. The forum was held immediately before the ICEF Berlin Workshop and brought together 156 delegates from 39 countries for two days of conference sessions and one-to-one meetings.

"ICEF created massive global business opportunities for both buyer and seller, agents and institutes," said SSBCL Group's Sumon Talukder (Bangladesh). "They really created a great hub for the business community; a lot of people get real business opportunities."

There are a number of overlapping trends that have combined to bring work experience tourism—gap year travel, responsible tourism, volunteer travel, internships, au pair placements, and more—to the mainstream. Younger travellers aged 16-23 still constitute the core of the market and account for more than half of all work experience travel. However, changing work patterns mean that more people now have the opportunity to take time out for extended travel. There are also larger populations of retired or pre-retirement workers—those 50 years or older with both the time and funds to support extended trips abroad—in many developed countries.

It is this middle group, those between the ages of 24 and 49, that has relatively recently claimed a larger share of the work and travel market. The so-called "career gap" segment has grown rapidly in recent years and now accounts for nearly 44% of all work experience tourism. Mintel's Jessica Rawlinson was recently quoted in the Daily Telegraph as saying, "[It] will be the growing number of older adults, such as career gappers taking a break from work, or denture venturers going on pre-retirement travels, who will boost the market in the future."

This point was made very clearly during the conference sessions at the
ICEF Work & Travel Forum, particularly by featured speakers Dick Porter, chair of the British Educational Travel Association (pictured above), and by pioneering work and travel entrepreneur Deirdre Bounds of i-to-i Travel. "I've been really invigorated by coming [to the ICEF forum] today," said Ms. Bounds during her conference presentation. "I really do believe we've got the hottest travel sector for the next 10 years right here in our hands."

Other notable observations from the forum's conference sessions included:

• BETA is leading an industry standards and advocacy effort in the UK, reflecting a growing interest in the sector to adopt rigorous quality controls and standards for work and volunteer placements abroad.
• The Internet plays an increasingly important role in work and travel bookings both as a source of information and as a sales platform. The WYSE Travel Confederation's New Horizons II report indicates that more than 80% of young travellers now use the Internet to search for information before taking a trip, and the conversion rate of Internet searches to bookings has increased four-fold during the past five years.
• As the market continues to grow, competition is intensifying throughout the sector, with greater participation in work and travel markets by major travel operators.

"[The forum] was very productive and gave us the chance to make a lot of new contacts and at the same time to learn quite a lot about the J-1 visa and about how to optimize our website," said Maria Jose Cuervo Pinto of Europa Plus Idiomas (Spain).

During the afternoon of the first day, the forum's conference programme, which was organised by BETA, gave way to a focused schedule of one-to-one meetings between educators, travel organisations, and agencies. Later that evening, the delegates attended a special dinner and dance reception at Wasserwerk, a former city water pumping station that has been turned into a nightclub (pictured below). More than 1,350 appointments were held over the two days of the forum, leading directly into the seminars and meetings of the ICEF Berlin Workshop.

The 2008 ICEF Work & Travel Forum will take place in Berlin from October 31 to November 1, immediately before the ICEF Berlin Workshop (November 2 to 4).

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