Group Travel Testimonials

Global Action is a family owned company founded in 2012 on the kitchen table of founders Mark and Katharine Giffard-Lindsay. We provide students with an experience that will enhance their education, widen their experiences, and give them knowledge of how the world works. Thus, enabling them to become Global Citizens making positive decisions for the future. We operate trips to Nepal, Zanzibar, India, Costa Rica, Borneo, and Switzerland. Being a small team, we all wear many different hats and perform a variety of roles.

Each of our itineraries are individually tailored to the educational objectives agreed with the schools. Whilst this allows us to deliver unique experiences to our clients, it also means a lot of time is put into the planning of each trip. Dealing directly with airlines for each individual booking on top of this planning had been very time-consuming, and led to potentially missing good prices or alternatives. This year with the COVID-19 pandemic, as with the rest of the travel sector, we would have had to spend a lot of time speaking with airlines, with schools cancelling and rescheduling trips.

Working with the Flight Centre Group Travel Team has allowed us to concentrate on trip planning more, in the knowledge that they will source and compare flight options for each of our trips, presenting us with the best solution to enhance the itinerary, and budget. Their professionalism and support through this year has been invaluable to the business.

The Learning Adventure is a sub-brand of The Dragon Trip. The Dragon Trip was formed in 2011 with the aim of providing young people with the chance to really experience China on a budget. The company expanded into other parts of Asia and developed educational tours. Despite the expansion, the core values of providing real, cultural experiences remained, with a focus on offering itineraries that enable young people to get under the skin of the places we visit. The Learning Adventure places a great emphasis on educational value with tours designed, alongside teachers, to meet learning outcomes. In 2019, the two brands were responsible for 6,000 travellers and arranged tours in Japan, Indonesia, Korea, China, India, Southeast Asia and had started operations in Europe. Indeed, in the same year, over 120 schools travelled with The Learning Adventure. These schools were located in the UK, US, Australia, Thailand, Qatar, Singapore, France and within mainland China. For the majority of these The Learning Adventure arranged the full service: accommodation, guiding, transport, activities, meals and, of course, international flights.

When Sales Manager Amy joined The Learning Adventure two years ago, the brand had just been separated from The Dragon Trip, so lots of major changes were under way for the company. “We had just obtained our ATOL license, so our previous customers had usually organised group flights themselves. As a specialist China tour operator this worked for us, but The Learning Adventure was designed to be a one-stop service for schools, and we needed to provide bespoke all-inclusive quotes for our schools within two or three working days,” says Amy. In order to be able to compete with other school trip providers and offer the most hassle-free service for teachers, a solution was needed to find the most cost-effective and convenient flights for student groups.

“We had big plans to grow our customer base and the destinations that The Learning Adventure offered, both across the UK and internationally," says The Learning Adventure director Alex Seigel. “Our team needed to focus on creating high-quality bespoke educational itineraries and providing excellent customer service throughout the sales process. However, we didn’t have the capacity to look for a range of suitable flights for each group in-house.”

“The Dragon Trip had previously been recommending student groups to use The Flight Centre before obtaining an ATOL license, and we had always received great feedback about their service, so it made sense for us to continue the relationship and work with them directly for flight quotes,” says Alex.

As Amy’s teacher base and sales team grew and new trip destinations were developed, she relied on Flight Centre to provide quick and cost-effective quotes for her groups. “I found that most schools were operating with a strict budget, but at the same time they wanted to fly to their destination direct with the most expensive airlines. It was very useful that Flight Centre could provide me with multiple airline quotes within the timeframe that I needed. That way teachers could present a range of options to their schools and understand ways how to save on their trip. It was very easy communicating with the Flight Centre Group Travel Team and also being an educational travel company meant they easily understood each group's requirements."

Prior to working with Flight Centre and providing an all-inclusive package to schools, some leads would go elsewhere to another provider. “I found that our conversion rate improved considerably once we were quickly able to provide an all-in price and potential flight options. Teachers get their trips approved much faster when they can present all trip details and costs to their schools straight away,” says Amy. “Another great outcome of using Flight Centre was that once schools realised that they could save a few hundred pounds with a different airline or layover, they were much more willing to be flexible. There are still some groups that wish to arrange flights themselves, but it is great to have both options available.”

The Learning Adventure expanded considerably during those two years, with significant growth across Europe and the Middle East, and were starting to operate their first trips within Europe. The past few months have been particularly challenging due to the COVID-19 pandemic but Flight Centre and The Learning Adventure worked together to come to a solution for each group that had booked to travel in 2020.

“Flight Centre has been extremely helpful during this period and has worked hard to ensure that our groups were provided the best resolution," says Alex. “I trust that this will continue post-pandemic and we are looking forward to continuing working together long term.”