Business name: World Challenge
Where are you located?
Melbourne is our Australian HQ, supporting our World Challenge representatives across the country. We’re also fortunate to be part of a global World Challenge team with a UK HQ just outside London and a wider Travelopia Group with offices and staff across the globe.
Brief summary of your business?
Founded in 1987 and incorporated in Australia in 2003, World Challenge understands the many varied needs of educators and students when developing trips, so we offer a very wide range of educational travel options, including expeditions, curriculum tours, sport tours and learning service journeys.
We recognise that these trips are often amongst the first that young people undertake without family, and so our mission is to deliver truly life enriching experiences that will stay with them forever.
We’re committed to providing the most secure financial and physical safety assurances available, as demonstrated by our legacy of accreditations, awards, and positive customer reviews, and are committed to the important journey of travelling in such a way that ensures a brighter future for both people and planet.
Which destinations do you specialise in?
Australia, New Zealand and a further 40 or so countries throughout Asia, Europe, North and South/Central America and Africa.
Have you won any awards or had any special recognition acknowledgment of your business?
Of all the achievements we’ve enjoyed, we’re probably most proud of our journey to becoming climate positive. It’s been a long and arduous journey to this point, but certainly an important one that we’re all very committed to continuing.
What are the advantages to your business as a SETO member?
As a member there’s a real sense of ‘being stronger together!’ The world (and the world of educational travel) has changed significantly over the past few years, making SETOs main pillars – Governance, Advocacy and Education – more important than ever before.
What have been the greatest challenges to your business in 2022?
Recruitment. Sadly, many people left the industry given the challenges of the past few years. However, it’s also been very pleasing to see more excellent candidates appearing as we’ve built back over the past few months.
Consumer travel forecasts, where are your customers enquiring to travel?
Enquiries have really increased significantly in the past six months. Previously almost all enquiries were for Expeditions within Australia, but now there are many varied enquiries, particularly for Curriculum Tours to Europe, Sports Tours to New Zealand and of course Expeditions too many different parts of Asia.
How has your business changed and adapted since the global pandemic hit?
We’ve really worked very hard on our overall proposition, developing significant capability to deliver Curriculum and Sports Tours alongside our Expeditions and Learning Service Journeys, together with the systems and processes to enable this. We have a new bespoke reservation system enabling a real breadth of trips, a custom Learning Management System to deliver educational outcomes and many new partners around the world.
Looking forward what are you excited about over the next 12 months?
Student Travel is what excites and unites us all, so it’s great to be back operating trips – bring it on!
