Reef to Rainforest

With International travel on hold right now there are of course incredible life transformational opportunities for school students to embark on right here in our back yard in Australia. This is not at all surprising when we reflect on the tens of thousands of young people that descend on Australia every year to explore, study, learn, perform, compete and have fun in our vast, diverse land, across a wide range of educational, cultural, sporting and music horizons.

Over the last 9 months, since COVID-19 transformed the world we live in, there has been widespread discussion within the airline industry around the future of air travel and what airline travel would look like in a post-COVID era. For the airline industry 2020 was a horrific year with mass redundancies, huge financial losses and a huge reduction in flight capacity. In this part of the world the struggles of Qantas and Air New Zealand are well documented but as begin 2021, we are starting to see the first glimmer of recovery in the airline industry as airlines start to reopen closed routes and also redefine the guidelines that will become the norm for air travel in 2021 and beyond.

103 years ago, a battle raged for 103 days on the Western Front. The Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele, was a campaign of the First World War, fought by the Allies against the German Empire. On this day 103 years ago, New Zealand forces would suffer 2700 casualties – NZ’s blackest day...

On my desk in my garage (our makeshift Student Horizons ‘Head Office’) sits this photograph. It puts a smile on my face. The Covid-19 crisis and the associated catastrophic impact on Student Horizons (and the rest of the travel and tourism industry) and on our people has shaken my resolve at times over the last 6 months. It has shaken my steadfastness on the odd occasion to keep going. 

Thank you for your support in working together to support the future of travel.

Thank you to all our clients for their patience. We do appreciate there is some frustration and anger at the speed of the recovery of funds and if we could speed the refund process up please be assured, we absolutely would. The dedicated funds recovery team at Student Horizons continue to work incredibly hard on recovering funds from suppliers across the globe for our April and July groups that have made the difficult decision to cancel.

I am very grateful to those schools and families who continue to believe in what we do and have opted to postpone rather than cancel their 2020 school trips. Postponement keeps the dreams alive for groups of students who were looking forward to travelling in 2020. Postponement, rather than cancellation, also provides Student Horizons with a future and is critical to Student Horizons' survival.

The COVID-19 global situation has created an unprecedented set of circumstances for everyone and as the owner of Student Horizons, I understand there is uncertainty and concern over our present and future. I must note that prior to the impact of COVID-19, Student Horizons was a strong viable business with year on year growth in New Zealand and Australia over the last 5 years.

Through our years of working and touring with secondary schools, it became clear that many young people were unable to access educational travel opportunities due to financial hardship. Student Horizons strongly feels that learning through experience and from the world we live in is an essential step in personal development, which is why it is so important to us that educational tours are achievable for all students.