Home > Teachers > How to Plan a Trip > Recruiting Students

Recruiting Students

Now that you've chosen a trip, it's time to start finding the would-be world travelers in your school. The larger your group, the more people you’ll touch through the wonders of travel. And of course the larger your group, the better chance you have of guaranteeing your own tour bus and tour manager, the more assistants you can bring for free, and the greater the chances are for you—the group leader—to earn free travel, extra cash and many more benefits!

Here are some helpful hints to help you grow your group.

Girls Singing

Get the Word Out

Gain support and interest for your trip by promoting your tour in your school and community websites, newspapers and social media sites.
Group os students

Hold Additional Meetings

Students are a busy bunch, and there’s a good chance that sports, clubs, part-time jobs or other extra-curricular activities prevented some from attending your first after school meeting. Same goes for the evening parent meeting. Pick a different day and time to maximize the chance that all interested parties will be able to attend. For added impact, invite a couple of enthusiastic students who’ve already registered to help act as your tour cheerleaders.
Girl and Boy

Testimonials Tell All

Develop ways to get former students and participants involved in publicizing your new tour. Arrange for an open meeting for potential and existing participants, and ask veteran travelers to talk to the group about their experiences and favorite parts of the tour. Have them stress the real-world benefits of educational travel. Presenting slide shows and picture collages of previous trips always creates a real travel buzz!
fundraise

Fundraise Away

Fundraising is a classic method of lightening the financial load of a tour and of publicizing within the community. For fundraising ideas such as online peer funding, fair trade fundraising and classics like car washes and raffles, check out our fundraising section.

picnic

ACIS is Education Scholarship

Publicize the Travel is Education Scholarship Contest within your school and community. This will be great PR for your trip, and help you to entice students who wouldn’t otherwise consider travel due to financial factors. Learn more about our travel scholarship.

Group of boys

Use ACIS’ My Account to Promote Your Trip

ACIS’ My Account features a number of tools designed to help you promote your trip and communicate with your participants. These features include:
  • A unique Trip Site available to group leaders and potential participants once a quote for a trip has been requested.
  • A "Tell Me More" feature that allows potential travelers and their parents to express interest before registering. This is a great tool to use as an online sign-up sheet during recruiting meetings.
  • A comment board section allows you to communicate regularly with your tour participants about deadlines, news and events.
  • The ability for you to email your group, and add and remove email recipients. Remind  participants about upcoming meetings or payment deadlines and send new participants your customized Trip Site web address.
  • A participant list so you can see which participants are making payments and to see those who are in danger of being canceled because of non payment.
Login today to start taking advantage of the many resources available in My Account.

Visit TripStream

Show prospective participants how much fun other students are having on their tour by visiting TripStream, an online community where ACIS travelers share photos, videos and more.

Success Tips

Jump
  • Work with participants already enrolled on your tour—their eagerness to share the travel bug with friends makes them your best recruiters.
  • Contact undecided participants and parents.
  • Schedule a second and third round of afternoon and evening informational meetings.
  • Use available publicity channels to announce that space is filling up.
  • Remind potential participants that space is limited and may fill up quickly. No applications are accepted within 65 days of departure.