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Franchise Travel Organization Helps to Bridge the Gap for Students Wanting to Travel Abroad

Roughly 72% of Americans believe study abroad programs are critical to a student’s development and improving global relations. However, according to a recent survey done by Allianz Global Assistance USA+, only 12% participate in programs mostly due to a lack of financial resources.

To address this gap, Allianz Global Assistance created “ScholarTrips” to provide funding to students who want to study abroad, but lack the financial resources to travel. Through November 15, students aged 14 – 21 can submit a video to enter to win one of 10 $1,500 scholarships they can use to participate in volunteer and study abroad programs. The ScholarTrips Contest encourages global exchanges and has awarded over $65,000 in travel scholarships thus far.

Wanting to provide more opportunities, Allianz decided to partner with travel organizations such as Cruise Planners-American Express Travel.

“We are excited to expand our partnership with Allianz Global Assistance USA to provide students interested in travel the opportunity to enrich their education through study or volunteer programs.” said Michelle Fee, CEO and co-founder of Cruise Planners-American Express Travel. “Our 800-plus travel franchise owners are passionate about the value of travel, as we help bridge the gap between those who want to go on volunteer and study abroad programs and those who can afford it by hosting a national contest to provide scholarships.”

The ScholarTrips Contest is currently running through November 15th. To participate, students will record and edit a 60-90 second video answering the question “What do you expect to learn from your experience traveling abroad or volunteering away from home?” The top 30 videos with the most votes will move to the finalists round where travel experts will decide on the ten winners.

+Methodology: These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted June 6 to 10, 2013. For the survey, a nationally representative sample of 1,000 randomly-selected adults residing in the U.S. were interviewed by telephone via Ipsos’ U.S. Telephone Express omnibus. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate within ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire population of adults in the U.S. been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/gender composition reflects that of the actual U.S. population according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.