Travel is back with more ways than ever to experience the world. One of the fastest growing sectors of the industry is alumni travel.
Think of it as a destination college reunion. Instead of reconnecting with your old besties at a campus cocktail party, imagine meeting up at an authentic Tuscan wine estate for an immersive, 7-night tour that’s specially curated for your alumni group, university swag and all!
Before I joined Orbridge, a leading partner to the nation’s top alumni travel programs, I saw the impact of small group, educational tours firsthand. Using travel to engage alumni was a part of my strategy in my Alumni Relations role at Carnegie Mellon University.
What makes this kind of travel so special is that it takes us back to things we did as college students, whether it was a senior trip or a study abroad experience. To recreate those moments, decades later, brings back the same youthful excitement and spirit of adventure.
That alone can be life changing. But that’s not the only reason why alumni travel is so popular.
1. Alumni Guests Are Treated Like VIPs
As Executive Vice President of Sales at Orbridge, I now work with alumni travel partners to create reunions-of-a-lifetime for their constituents.
We have many alumni groups who love to travel this way, some who do multiple trips in one year. They sing the alma mater and do the chants and if there is an important alumni sporting event happening while on tour, we try to create opportunities for them to watch and cheer together.
I truly believe that it’s this VIP attention to detail that sets Orbridge apart from other alumni tour operators. We consider ourselves an extension of the university and work to ensure that the programs we’re producing are the best fit for each partner’s alumni organization.
As partners, their guests are our guests and we make sure they feel special, from the time they book until they are filling out the survey after the tour. That relationship also creates trust, which is crucial in this industry.
If someone goes to their university’s alumni website and sees that an Orbridge tour is sponsored by the university, it’s an endorsement. Right off the bat, they feel safe because we’re a trusted by their alma mater. Whether they’re coming to us through a large university like Ohio State or a small, liberal arts institution like Williams College, it increases our responsibility to exceed expectations at every turn.
And that’s the culture I hope we’ve been creating at Orbridge over the last 16 years.
2. Meaningful Alumni Engagement
Alumni travel creates opportunities for meaningful engagement that can’t be achieved with just a singular event.
First, guests traveling with their alma mater are often put in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people that share one common element—they’re all from the same college or university. Right away, the setting is very intimate. They’re eating together and sharing memories of time on campus.
Second, because we consider colleges and universities to be our partners, we approach every tour in tandem with them. That partnership includes everything from how we refer to their guests (are they Cornellians or are they Buckeyes?) to special touches along the tour. We might do alumni trivia on the bus or distribute something in their room that’s meaningful to that alumni group. For West Virginia University, that might be a pepperoni roll in their ship’s cabin—a local tradition that goes back nearly a century.
We also frequently invite faculty members to join the tour as guest lecturers, which takes the educational aspect of the tour to a new level. Additionally, that person becomes a familiar face that can draw you back to the university you attended five decades before, and that’s engaging, too. To care so much about a place and then be able to hear about all the wonderful things that are happening now reinforces that alumni relationship long after the trip has ended.
3. Connections that Last a Lifetime
While some of the alumni guests on our tours may have known each other from their college years, many come into the programs as complete strangers and leave with relationships that last a lifetime.
One of my favorite examples of this kind of connection happened several years ago on a tour for Carnegie Mellon. It’s an interesting institution in that there’s a renowned engineering school but there’s also a prominent College of Fine Arts.
We had an engineering alum and his wife on a tour that was led by our head of the School of Art. They had never met him before but during their 10 days of touring Provence, they were able to learn more about the school, his leadership and the school’s mission. This couple had such an engaging time with him that upon their return, they made a substantial gift to the School of Art.
While alumni travel is not about giving, watching this story unfold demonstrates the power of bringing people together through the unique itineraries we create. Folks who haven’t been engaged with their university for years might get one of our brochures in the mail and be drawn back to the institution that once meant so much to them.
In the end, the magic of what we do with our partners is reigniting and reinforcing bonds that were created decades ago. In addition to sharing a journey they will never forget, guests traveling with fellow alumni return home with a renewed feeling of belonging to the alma mater that shaped the people they are today.
It’s a win-win for all involved and there really is nothing quite like it.
Vanessa Cheatham is Executive Vice President of Sales at Orbridge, one of the fastest growing alumni travel companies in the industry. Leading the market in sustainability and innovation, Orbridge offers opportunities to experience the world by land, sea, and private jet. For more information, visit orbridge.com.
Alumni travel stock image by Dmitry Molchanov/Shutterstock
