Return to Bulletin Home - June 2006

FEATURE REPORT

The 2006 ICEF
Work & Travel Forum

The rapidly growing work and travel sector is exploding with new opportunities. And for two days in May, London was the place to get the latest information and establish new partnerships in this dynamic marketplace.

Hot on the heels of the London Workshop, the 2006 ICEF Work & Travel Forum hosted 150 participants from 42 countries in a tightly focused programme of conference sessions and one-to-one business meetings. “It gives you a chance to meet and socialise with everybody, and also remember everybody,” said BHV Education’s Gordana Kolenko (Croatia). “It was a great event for us.”

Origin of participants.

Ten years ago, outdoor travel was the hot emerging sector, and terms like adventure tourism, eco-tourism, and soft adventure came into popular usage for the first time. Now it’s the dramatic growth in work experience tourism that has drawn the interest of agents and educational institutions alike, even as its own unique language—gap year travel, responsible tourism, volunteer travel, and more—has come to the mainstream. Established work experience options, such as internships and au pair placements, are catching the wave as well to expand into new programmes and markets.

UK-based research firm Mintel’s well-regarded market studies point to explosive growth in work experience travel in the years ahead. Currently estimated to involve between 1 million and 1.5 million trips worldwide, the global work and travel market is expected to grow from £6 billion in 2005 to £11 billion (US$21 billion) by 2010. Client groups include pre-university or university-age travellers, the so-called “career gaps” (those travelling between career moves), and retirees. Regardless of age, these travellers are looking for new learning experiences combined with opportunities for work, whether for personal or professional development or to contribute their skills to local communities.

The implications are clear for both buyers and sellers: new opportunities and ways of doing business are on the horizon. As the work and travel sector continues to develop, new practices and standards are emerging as well.

The first day of the ICEF Work & Travel Forum was dedicated to exploring these topics via an ambitious conference programme put together by BETA (the British Educational Travel Association) and given by subject experts from the UK, Germany, Argentina, and Australia. Dr. Zweigman from Anglo American Education Services (UK) commented afterwards, “A wonderful opportunity to bring together organisations and agencies with similar objectives from all over the world. This is also a learning exercise—it certainly helped us to keep up with trends and developments in educational travel.”

The complete conference programme is summarised below.

• “State of the Market and Future Trends”, presented by Callum Kennedy, Director, BUNAC (UK) and David Stitt, Managing Director, Real Gap Experience, UK.

• “Responsible Tourism and Volunteering”, presented by Deirdre Bounds, Founder, i-to-i (UK) and Harold Goodwin, Director, International Centre for Responsible Tourism (UK).

• “Insurance and Risk Management”, presented by Dr. Jurgen Gemmeke, Vice-President, SITE (Services for International Travel and Education), Germany.

• “Standardisation and Accreditation”, presented by David Richards, Director of Sales and Marketing, OCR (Oxford Cambridge and RSA Examination Board, UK) and Fernanda Rojas, Barcelona Office Director, COINED International (Comisión de Intercambio Educativo, Argentina).

• “Visas and Regulatory Issues”, presented by Simon Lovett, Deputy Head, UKvisas (British Home Office and Foreign & Commonwealth Office, UK).

• “Work and Travel and the Internet”, presented by Andrew Bird, Managing Director, 247 Media (UK) and Rod Hearps, Operations Director, EdMedia (Australia).
  

Conference participants identified a number of current issues and trends in the work and travel sector, including key market indicators and the importance of the Internet as a platform for work experience programmes.

"The growing use of the Internet is producing dramatic growth in the work and travel sector," says Europlacement's Gijs Bodenstaff (Netherlands). "More people are comfortable using the Internet these days. At Europlacement alone, 99% of our business is now online, as compared to 50% five years ago."

Also of note, travellers are more and more making their own arrangements online, as opposed to using mediated services. "In the last year or so, there has been an increasing emphasis on usability, on making work and travel websites more user-friendly," observes Bodenstaff. "The gap between the service on a user-friendly website and a mediated service from a travel professional or counsellor is getting smaller all the time."

In his opening conference session, BUNAC’s Callum Kennedy (UK) also commented on the changing nature of demand in the sector. “We used to be able to rely on the intrinsic attraction of the destination whether it is the UK for inbound or another country for outbound to encourage visitors. In markets where the work abroad experience is relatively new, that may still be the case. Now increasingly in [more developed work-travel markets such as the UK], the crucial factor is not the country you are offering that is important but what you offer…when the participants get there.”

The day of conference sessions was followed by an evening cruise on the River Thames for fantastic views of the city and a special opportunity for informal networking.

"The conference sessions were very direct, very hard-working, and we learned a lot," says Volunteer Adventures Vice President Ross Wehner (US). "We're a relatively small organisation, and [the Work & Travel Forum] really lit a fire under us. This industry is growing up and becoming more professional. Learning more about work and travel programmes in Europe gives us a sense of what we can expect in the future."

The ICEF Bulletin is published periodically throughout the year. This email was sent to you by bulletin@icef.com.