Andy Steves Reporting from (and Thawing out in) Valencia

My son Andy is finishing his second year establishing his own business: organizing and guiding tours for American students on foreign study programs who want to turn their long weekends into excursions that bring today’s culture vividly to life. His three-day tours cost 200 euros each, and include hostels, picnics, tours, and so on.

Over the last two years, Andy has learned a lot about student travel and that market niche in Europe. As I did when I was his age (24), he finds that the best way to sell his tours is to give talks about traveling, which has the added bonus of introducing his audiences to his tour business. Andy gives talks for American foreign study programs on campuses all over Europe. His mission: to get students off on the right foot as they use their home city as a springboard to experience the cultural capitals of Europe. Administrators appreciate the practical, hip, and credible information Andy imparts in his lectures. Andy’s pay: He gets to pass out his Weekend Student Adventures tour brochures.

Andy basically lives in hostels all over Europe and runs his business from his laptop at cafés offering free Wi-Fi. Here’s a report directly from Andy on the train in Spain.   It comes with a chance to view some thrilling new video clips that a student working with Andy has just made (I particularly enjoyed these for a chance to share the joy of a 20-year-olds view of Europe that Andy offers his travelers):

I’m writing this on the train from Barcelona to Valencia, almost finished with my marathon speaking tour. Just yesterday, I was in Prague, which is facing the brute force of Europe’s Siberian cold front. Sub-zero temperatures would freeze any uncovered fingers, noses, or ears within minutes. Memories of that bitter cold, combined with Barcelona’s relative warmth, are making my short visit to Spain particularly sweet.

With my crazy schedule of zipping from one campus to another on successive days all over Europe to give my talks, I’ve constantly benefitted from the infrastructure investments made by European governments lately. From Spain’s AVE bullet train (which I’m on right now), to the real-time bus-locator app I found so helpful in London, to the Dublin airport’s sleek and shiny new Terminal 2, my whirlwind tour simply wouldn’t have been possible without Europe’s streamlined transportation network. In the last month, my talks — which I’ve billed as “Cultural Integration Seminars” — have taken me through campuses in Cork, Dublin, Limerick, Galway, London, Paris, Prague, Florence, and Rome, to name a few. And the transportation connections really couldn’t have been smoother.

At the start of each semester, I tour throughout Europe giving these talks to help students kick off their semester right. I do my best to prepare and inspire them with a travel philosophy that helps break them out of their American shell. It’s such a sad lost opportunity when students, blessed with the chance to have a foreign study experience, fall into a routine of just hanging out with other American students. In the end, they return home unchanged. My talks — and my tours — are designed to encourage them to find a more fulfilling experience.

After my last talk later this week in southern Spain, I’ll fly from Málaga to Geneva to lead one of our Swiss Alps adventures in Gimmelwald. It starts next Friday, kicking off semester four for WSAEurope.

Things are going well! In the last three weeks, we’ve sold more spring 2012 tours than we did for all of the fall semester of 2011. These numbers give me confidence that we’re going in the right direction and we’re getting some good word-of-mouth among students abroad. Our hottest tours for this semester will be St. Patrick’s Dublin and Easter Rome (two specialty tours we had great success with last year). Rounding out our destination roster are Paris, Barcelona, Prague, London, Amsterdam, and our Swiss Alps ski trip. London has always been a challenge to sell, though — it seems students don’t value a tour so highly in a country that speaks English. While London is quite expensive, Prague is a much cheaper place to operate tours, yet delivers much more perceived value to the students — as the Czech culture, language, and currency tend to be far more intimidating to the average backpacker.

We’re testing a few new things to improve tour sales. Our new virtual student gift card for parents has been very popular. This lets parents live vicariously through their students’ adventures with WSA, as they can keep up with trip photo albums, blog entries, and Facebook and Twitter posts.

And we’re really excited about the newly finished highlight reels of our tours made by our video intern from last semester, Connor Reidy of Boston University. His acumen as a video producer really communicates the fun of our tours. So far, Paris and Amsterdam are now complete and posted. More clips are coming soon! Even if your student travel days are long gone, click over and enjoy the artistry of these short clips. And if you know any students studying in Europe, please encourage them to follow us on Facebook and check out all the free resources at http://www.wsaeurope.com/.

Happy travels! Andy Steves signing off…and just pulling into Valencia!