News Interview with Paula Reynolds, President Tell us your story. How did American Tour Guide Association get started?American Tour Guide Association started with a vision to create experiences rather than itineraries. Spending many hours on the road with travellers,...
News Young travellers planning multi-country trips are valuable visitors for destinations to attract since they tend to travel longer and spend more in destination than other types of tourists. Based on data from WYSE Travel Confederation’s New Horizons Survey of...
News By Kelsey Fenerty, STRMIAMI – Despite the hostel industry’s ongoing evolution toward more stylish and sophisticated offerings that appeal to travelers of every ilk, the youth traveler – whether backpacker or gap year student – remains an important demand-driver...
News Press releaseLondon, UK – 13 June 2019StudentUniverse, the UK’s leading student and youth travel booking site, has announced the brand’s continued global growth, as it launches to the Australian market.In a bid to expand its online presence to a global audience,...
News At what age should you pay for your own vacation? A Bankrate survey of Americans suggests that the magic number is 20 – three years earlier than you should be expected to pay for your own health insurance and student loans. Young travellers tend to have fairly...
News The year is 2030. Close to 2 billion travellers are traversing international borders. Cash is obsolete. Biometrics are firmly rooted. Mobility-as-a-Service has matured. Airbnb finally found a way forward with cities to the mutual benefit of residents and...
News Recently BBC Capital put the question on the table as to how many days you should take off work for the optimum holiday or vacation trip. What is the perfect trip length that leaves you with maximum satisfaction and avoiding disappointment? While there are many...
News Youth and ‘the younger generation’ were among the most-used buzzwords of the World Travel & Tourism Council’s 2019 Global Summit- not least by the Summit’s distinguished guest of honour, former US President Barack Obama.Hosted in the city of Seville, Spain,...
News “Australian tourism has grown from strength-to-strength in recent years to the point where we are now welcoming more than 9 million international visitors annually, generating $43.2 billion in spending.” – John O’Sullivan, Managing...
News TourRadar, the world’s largest online travel agency for multi-day tours, is searching for two complete strangers to go on the trip of a lifetime as part of its Tour the World campaign. These two participants will travel across the globe together, participating in...
News We are excited to announce HI USA has recently opted to become an Elite member of WYSE Travel Confederation. As HI USA sets its path to becoming recognised as an advocate for youth travel, they are now better positioned with the tools, resources and networking...
News Interview with Rinlapas Poosirivoraphan, Director Tell us your story. How did iHappy Education get started? I personally like to travel and have had the opportunity to travel to the US, including many US cities and states. So, I thought it could be a good...
News Interview with TAN HUI, Vice General Manager Tell us your story. How did Sichuan YZS Education Administration get started? My colleague and I have been working for international cultural exchange programs for over 20 years. We sent thousands of primary and middle...
News President Donald Trump introduced the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in November 2017. The new tax law has implications for interns, au pairs, Summer Work Travel participants, trainees and other participants of the US Exchange Visitor Program who have earned money while...
News Interview with Wei Soong Wong, Director of Operations Tell us your story. How did Infinity Abroad get started? It all began with my very own J1 adventure. I joined Work & Travel USA back in 2011 with my buddy Favian, and we thought to ourselves – how can we...
News Interview with Albert Lee, Executive Director Tell us your story. How did International Education Exchange get started? I am an English teacher by profession, extremely keen to experience various cultures. I started organising study groups and language travel to...
News Hostelling International USA (HI USA) is setting out to change the way people around the world take showers. The project is called the “Million Gallon Challenge” and it began with a plan to address a crisis in California. “In 2014, we were looking for innovative...
News The US Department of State has an important update for J-1 Exchange Visitor Program sponsors, participants, and advocates. The department sent the following message this week to WYSE Travel Confederation: As you know, the Department of State facilitates a...
News Have you signed up to one of our industry events yet? Click the logos to find out more. New York City welcomed 13.1 million international visitors in 2017, an all-time high. In total, 62.8 million tourists arrived in the city last year, a growth of nearly four...
News Since TourRadar expanded to North America, opening the Toronto office in 2015, the region is now the biggest and fastest growing market for the company. The WYSE Travel Confederation member said that most recently their business development team has more than...
News Two major US news organisations are reporting that the Trump administration is considering restrictions on visas for Chinese students and other citizens, as part of a forthcoming package of tariffs and investment restrictions against China. The Wall Street...
News By Russ Hedge, CEO, Hostelling International USA It’s called citizen diplomacy, and in these days of numbing public rhetoric, it’s the right time for individual Americans to actively embrace it. Citizen diplomacy means that an individual has the right,...
News Congresswoman Cheri Bustos (D-IL) and Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) have introduced the latest incarnation of the bipartisan Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Program Act. This bill would establish a competitive grant program, run by the Department of...
News For the past ten years, the Smaller Earth Hungarian office has hosted a post-summer reunion party for their J-1 exchange visitor visa programme participants to celebrate the friendships they made, the great work they did and the impact that they had in the...
News Leaders, alumni, and current students of CIEE: Council on International Educational Exchange marked the 50 year anniversary of the opening of CIEE’s Study Center in St. Petersburg. The programme was the first educational exchange that ever took place between the...
News WYSE Travel Confederation urges US Secretary of State to protect J-1 Exchange Visitor Program visas The Honorable Rex W. Tillerson Secretary of State U.S. Department of State 2201 C St., NW Washington, DC 20520 United States of America RE: The...
News New report confirms: Cultural exchange programmes boost US economy and diplomacy A recent report on J1 Exchange Visitor Program confirms its many benefits including addressing labor shortages across the nation, contributing hundreds of millions of dollars...
News American Camp Association says J-1 visa cuts will shutter camps, put US workers out of jobs In response to efforts by the White House to cut or eliminate J-1 Visa programs that would impact cultural exchanges at America’s summer camps, the American Camp...
News Join WYSE Travel Confederation in the fight to preserve the US J-1 Visa Exchange Visitor Program Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration is planning major cuts to US cultural exchange programmes. Five programmes under the...
Their counterparts in many other countries would probably love to have the problems that Canadian universities are dealing with this summer. Events around the world have driven so many international postgraduate students to apply to universities in Canada that some...
Two recent articles – one in Time magazine and the other on National Public Radio – demonstrate that American students are losing interest in summer jobs. Time cites data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicating that only 35 percent of American teenagers...
The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) expresses its firm resentment over the recently-announced decision by the United States Administration to restore travel restrictions with Cuba. “This represents a step backwards and a strong attack on the freedom of travel,”...
In late June 2015, Giancarlo Sopo got off a plane in Havana, Cuba, where his cousins waited for him in a 1980s-era Lada. He wasn’t sure what they looked like, but was immediately embraced by his relatives, who recognized him from photos. He stayed for ten days in...
The Trump administration has proposed cuts in FY18 of 28 percent to the State Department, with much deeper cuts likely to the Bureau for Educational and Cultural Affairs, and a significant narrowing of the types of exchange programs our country supports. If enacted...
New York City tourism officials are making sure tourists from Mexico know they’re still welcome in the Big Apple. Representatives from Mexico City’s Ministry of Tourism and NYC & Company, the City’s official destination marketing organization, have...
Twice in a matter of months, the ethos of our industry has been rattled by a political debacle. With a shift in power at the White House looming, it is safe to say that the majority of us are now questioning and feeling very concerned about what the future holds for...
WYSE Travel Confederation is delighted to announce that U.S. Department of State’s Deputy Assistant Secretary Keri Lowry will be attending WYSTC this year in Belgrade, Serbia 20-23 September. Keri Lowry is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Private Sector Exchanges,...
Congratulations to Grand American Adventures and its sister company, WYSE Travel Confederation member TrekAmerica, both leading providers of small group and adventure holidays to the USA who have registered ‘exceptional’ customer service levels under the independent...
Intrepid Travel, the Tui Travel-owned adventure holiday specialist, is claiming impressive engagement levels for its adventure.com online community, reports Travolution. The site, which is currently in test mode in north America, was launched only last July after the...
The south is overtaking the north. Growth in the South American travel market continues to outstrip that of its larger North American counterpart. This is one of the findings of the annual ITB World Travel Trends Report, conducted by IPK International and commissioned...
