Say goodbye to passport errors and stress

We caught up with Halsbury Travel, a long-term supporter of The EVC Magazine, to find out about its teacher tool, My Trip Zone, which is designed to save you time and stress when organising a visit.

Image: Welland Park Academy’s Trip to the WW1 Battlefields with Halsbury Travel

Educational visits providers and tour operators help schools to plan and organise their overseas visits. This can help reduce time and cost pressures on schools by: arranging accommodation with tried and tested providers; finding the best travel options; setting a realistic itinerary; and advising on relevant excursions that will help bring learning to life. Now they can also help ease the admin burden for your visits – Adam Connolly, Head of Operations and Customer Experience at Halsbury Travel explains more.

Q: What do teachers tell you are the biggest admin headaches when they’re organising visits?

A: It’s not usually one big task that creates pressure, it’s the build up of smaller ones. Staff are collecting passport details, managing deadlines, communicating with parents, recording dietary and medical details, and having to keep track of changes throughout.

Inconsistent data collection is a big factor in school trip stress. If information comes in by email, paper forms or different documents it creates extra work for the Visit Leader. Passports are a good example – this is essential information, but collecting them manually can be time consuming and there’s a higher risk of human error or of important information being missed, which could affect the visit.

Q: What’s your solution?

A: At Halsbury, we’ve created a new customer portal, My Trip Zone, which is designed to reduce the admin burden around school trips. It brings data collection into one place, helping schools collect and manage information more efficiently and securely.

In practice, this means that the Visit Leader can send one secure link to parents, which enables them to collect information through designated digital forms. Parents use their smartphone to scan passport details, helping to improve accuracy.

Up-to-date passports and documents are essential for overseas travel. The system highlights expiry dates and visa reminders so that parents can renew passports and arrange the appropriate visa in plenty of time, reducing the risk of children missing out on visits.

The portal also has built-in passenger and waiting list tools and a to-do list function which updates automatically with deadlines. For teachers, this means fewer spreadsheets, less duplication and a clearer process.

Q: What feedback have you had from schools so far?

A: It’s been really encouraging. We worked with a selection of schools in a pilot scheme to test My Trip Zone and make sure it was addressing their needs and challenges. Since we launched earlier this year, we’ve had very positive feedback. One teacher said:

“This has definitely made it easier to collect passport information and will make it easier to collect the dietary requirements and allergy information. It puts the responsibility back onto the parents rather than feeling like it is on staff”.

If visit planning or paperwork is becoming a barrier to organising visits, ask your provider how they can help you – after all, they’re experts in organising visits. Let them support you, so you can get on with ensuring your visits are safe, memorable and inclusive experiences for all your children and young people.

To find out more about My Trip Zone, visit Halsbury’s website, here.

Image: Wye School departing on their Berlin school trip with Halsbury Travel