Gap year providers eye college-leavers
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Gap year holiday providers will be looking to appeal to college-leavers today as A Level results are released.
Tour operators look to encourage those who don’t get the grades they needed for university to take a gap year, while also targeting those who are finding it difficult to get a job as the level of youth unemployment grows.
Contiki Holidays is also using a recent survey to show how many Brits wish they had travelled more when they were younger to entice the current 18-35 market. In a recent poll of 2,000 people aged 35 or over, 75% said they wish they had travelled more when they were younger to be more aware of cultures and be more confident.
However tour operators may struggle against tighter purse strings, with 77% of those surveyed saying money had held back their travels and the finances likely to be less for young people today.
“Many young people find this time of year quite uncertain: maybe they didn’t quite get the grades they needed to secure a place at university, or they’ve decided to defer for a year. For those people, this year presents the perfect opportunity to travel before starting at university and before the responsibilities of the career ladder really kick in. Travel broadens the mind, deepens understanding of different cultures, and opens the eyes to different ways of doing things, which are all values that employers consider important,” said Matt Fletcher, sales and marketing director for Contiki.
ABTA said its members are seeing college-leavers take shorter month-long tours instead of a year out completely. The association said work experience placements abroad remain the most popular type of gap year, followed by adventure travel. The traditional round-the-world trip has dropped behind but is still popular.
“Gap years have become even more popular among British teenagers since the rise in tuition fees in 2012 and increased competition for graduate jobs, with many students now looking to travel experiences to help make their gap year stand out on the CV,” said ABTA’s head of communications Victoria Bacon.
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