Enda Kelleher and James Brazelton joined the Travel Safety Panel on 1 January 2024, for a term of three years. As long-standing members of WYSE, we look foward to seeing what they bring to the Panel and Confederation.
Enda, hi, and welcome to the Travel Safety Panel! Quick fire: which trend do you think will impact your business the most this year?
Truly getting back to the volume of travel and interest in working abroad that was increasing all the way up to February 2020.
We like the sound of that! We’ve seen you and team Sprintax at several editions of WYSTC. Can you tell us its best-kept secret?
The efficiency of the format. Everyone is focused on making connections and doing business. To have so many clients and service providers in one spot, and complementing face-to-face meeting makes for a tiring but very worthwhile week.
No mention of Fandango the flamingo?! Ok, final question: what would be your #1 tip to a young person/student embarking on their first journey abroad?
Leave your ‘baggage’ – your preconceived ideas of what to expect – at the airport and embrace the adventure. When things don’t go to plan, they can still work out better than you ever anticipated, and with an open mind, you’ll get so much more out of your time abroad.
Hear, hear.
Enda Kelleher
Travel Safety Panel
Director
Sprintax Inc
James Brazelton
Managing Director
GeoVisions (Alliance Strategies)
Hi James, glad to have you on the Travel Safety Panel! To kick off your tenure, we’d love to hear what trend you believe will impact your business this year.
The ongoing shifts in K-12 education in the US are going to have a big impact on GeoVisions this year. Whilst the shortage of educators isn’t anything new, we are seeing signs that the post-pandemic reaction against virtual and online teaching by parents continues to impact district decision-making. This puts even more pressure on the already far too few teachers in the classroom, which in turn feeds the growing population of ex-teachers. For GeoVisions, J-1 teachers, interns and trainees at US schools, this pushes schools to consider these exchange programmes where they might not have before.
And if you could promptly achieve one goal in the realm of sustainable travel, what would it be?
The proliferation of short, city-hopping trips and tours means travellers are causing far more emissions than if they visited one location. It also encourages the most superficial level of engagement with the local culture. Instead of going on a London, Paris, Rome trip for 10 days to see only the most common tourist icons, getting travellers to spend all 10 days in one area drastically reduces their carbon footprint for the trip, and creates opportunity for unique human experiences.
True – as well as a deeper understanding of a local culture and the opportunitiy to give back. As someone enthusiastic about ensuring the safety of young travellers, what’s your top tip for a young person/student embarking on their first journey abroad?
I think all of us who work in travel safety know that there is far more information that we would want our travellers to digest than they are willing to consume, even if it would keep them safe. My top tip would be for travellers to spend just a few minutes at the beginning of each day of travel thinking about what they are going to do that day and quickly Googling those activities plus “safety”. By thinking about safety in context-specific ways each day, travellers are much more likely to stay safe and vigilant.
Thanks, James – invaluable insights here.
Travel Safety Panel
