Ep 26 Engaging the Next Generation: The Student Travel Group's Unique Approach
This episode dives into the transformative impact of travel on young individuals, particularly through the lens of the Student Travel Group, founded by Matthew Wade. Our discourse delves into the essence of fostering authentic experiences that transcend conventional tourism, as Matthew shares his mission to inspire students to embrace travel and cultural exploration. We engage in a detailed examination of emerging trends within the travel industry, highlighting the demand for personalized and immersive adventures that allow for meaningful interactions with locals. The conversation further emphasizes the importance of social proof in marketing strategies, showcasing how genuine testimonials can effectively combat skepticism and foster trust among potential travelers. As we navigate this dialogue, listeners will glean actionable insights into how educational institutions and travel brands can collaborate to cultivate a new generation of culturally aware and adventurous individuals.
IN THIS EPISODE:
- 00:07 - Introduction to Aqua Talks
- 02:07 - The Mission of Student Travel Group
- 09:55 - Transitioning to National Chapter Operations
- 17:40 - Exploring New Horizons in Student Travel
- 22:34 - The Journey of Travel: The Importance of Taking the First Step
- 25:19 - Discovering Greece: Adventures and Insights
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- In the pursuit of effective marketing, Aqua Talks underscores the necessity of forging genuine connections with one's audience, thereby transcending the cacophony of superficial engagements.
- The Student Travel Group exemplifies a paradigm shift in travel preferences among students, favoring personalized experiences over conventional tourist attractions, thus fostering deeper cultural interactions.
- Emphasizing the importance of social proof, the podcast reveals how authentic testimonials from peers significantly enhance the credibility and appeal of travel initiatives among the youth.
- The conversation highlights the transformative impact of travel on students, illustrating how immersive experiences can catalyze personal growth and broaden perspectives on global cultures.
Transcript
Welcome to Aqua Talks, where marketing meets bold game changing ideas.
Speaker A:Join your hosts, Larry Aldrich and Maddie Dudley as they explore the art and science of cutting through the noise, capturing attention and fostering meaningful connections with your audience.
Speaker A:Whether you're a destination marketer, government contractor, or simply passionate about the transformative power of marketing, Aqua Talks offers engaging discussions, fresh insights and actionable strategies designed to inspire and inform.
Speaker B:Hi and welcome back to Aqua Talks.
Speaker B:My name is Maddie.
Speaker B:I am the public relations director for Aqua Marketing and Communications.
Speaker B:This is a podcast for marketing pros.
Speaker B:Whether you're just getting started or you are a seasoned.
Speaker B:I'm joined as always by my co host, Larry Aldrich.
Speaker C:I'm Larry Aldrich, President CEO of Aqua Marketing Communications and Brentz's Technology llc.
Speaker C:Today we're here with Matthew Wade.
Speaker C:He is the founder of Student Travel Group.
Speaker C:So we'll be looking forward to talking to Matthew a lot more about Student Travel Group.
Speaker C:Matthew, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Student Travel Group.
Speaker D:Yes.
Speaker D:So my name is Matthew Wade.
Speaker D:I actually just graduated from the University of Michigan with a computer science degree.
Speaker D:And in my senior year I started a student travel group.
Speaker D:And I'll kind of just start with the mission, like why we started Student Travel Group.
Speaker D:And our mission is to just inspire more students to fall in love with travel, one unforgettable experience at a time.
Speaker D:And we believe we can do that.
Speaker D:On the recreational side of getting people to go out, travel more, explore different cultures, just see different destinations, but also on the professional side of just seeing that there's a lot of professions in the trial industry and from marketing technology research, like there's so many opportunities in the trial industry that they could kind of take advantage of.
Speaker D:So.
Speaker B:So before we get into our Q and A, we did want to talk about some industry trends and I'm really excited to pick your brain as a recent graduate of some industry trends that are top of mind for you.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:So something that I've been seeing a lot lately.
Speaker D:It's just people don't want the same cookie cutter trip.
Speaker D:People don't want to visit, you know, the same top tourist attractions.
Speaker D:And you know, it's kind of like you stay in all these different cities, but you're in the same hotels with the same pools and everything.
Speaker D:I just see, you know, my friends and people that I talk to just really wanting something different, wanting to create their own experience, wanting to interact with locals and just really just.
Speaker D:We call it like side quests, really go on these random side quests and just kind of See what's out there and just like have their own crazy experience in each different destination.
Speaker C:So how does student travel group impact that?
Speaker D:Yeah, so we just really want to promote that.
Speaker D:We, we promote talking to locals as much as we possibly can.
Speaker D:Like for example, in our trip to Istanbul and Greece, while we were in the bazaar, we were in the Grand Bazaar.
Speaker D:It's just like negotiating and bartering with every single person in the shops and just, you know, seeing who could do best and seeing who could get the best deals.
Speaker D:And some people were acting like they couldn't speak English and only doing through the calculator.
Speaker D:And that seemed to work pretty well.
Speaker D:And we learned if they, if their prices are in USD, it's going to be too expensive.
Speaker D:But if they're negotiating Lyra, it's a lot better to work there.
Speaker D:And just like you learn a lot from talking to people.
Speaker D:I mean, in the taxis you try to talk to everybody from.
Speaker D:We were in a Turkish delicate delicacy shop where they're serving baklava.
Speaker D:And we actually met some exchange students, international students that were from Germany but studying in Istanbul.
Speaker D:And I don't even know, like, our cameraman was like just talking to them and then it just kind of became a whole big thing.
Speaker D:And they're just saying how like they never get Americans in Istanbul.
Speaker D:And like they're so surprised to see us in such a big group.
Speaker D:And then they're like teaching us random, like dances.
Speaker D:They're like country dances and German dances and stuff.
Speaker D:Stuff.
Speaker D:And it was just, it was just so cool to kind of see all that come together.
Speaker D:It was like such a good time.
Speaker D:We end up getting kicked out because, like, we're too loud.
Speaker D:And then they call the police and you get up king.
Speaker B:Oh, wow.
Speaker D:Yeah, we got kicked out.
Speaker D:But it was like a nice kick out.
Speaker D:Okay.
Speaker D:Yeah, it was like nicely.
Speaker D:They were nice about it, like, politely, please leave.
Speaker D:You're way too loud.
Speaker D:So it wasn't bad.
Speaker D:It wasn't bad, but it was still just like just that moment.
Speaker D:It's just something that everybody will remember.
Speaker C:So what exactly?
Speaker C:If you had to explain to thousands of people, what does student travel group do?
Speaker D:Yeah, so what we do and what we always want to do is promote travel and promote exploration.
Speaker D:And we do that by partnering with a ton of travel brands.
Speaker D:Our main partnership is with Turkish Airlines today.
Speaker D:But we want to bring in guest speakers and show students, different people in the travel industry.
Speaker D:We want to bring students to different destinations.
Speaker D:We want to show students that experience that some students have and even Market it to the wider audience of Gen Z and inspire them to travel more.
Speaker D:That that's essentially our mission, just to get people falling in love with different cultures, learning that, you know, we're very different in a lot of different ways, but we're a lot similar in a lot of ways.
Speaker D:And, like, being able to, like, being able to want to learn other cultures, being able to want to interact with people who live in a different country and don't even speak the same language that you speak, but being able to relate on different things, I just feel like that's something we're really trying to promote and push hard amongst our generation.
Speaker B:So when you first came up with this idea, I would love to know how your friends, peers, teachers reacted.
Speaker B:Like, what were the ground efforts to making this come a reality?
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker D:So I remember when we finally were like, okay, we're gonna do it.
Speaker D:Like, we're in our senior year at the University of Michigan.
Speaker D:If there's any three people that could do it, it's us, so we're just gonna do it.
Speaker D:And we were talking about it and we're like, oh, my gosh, like, all our friends are gonna love it.
Speaker D:Like, a trip to Europe, a trip to Asia, and they know us, so they're gonna be like, oh, my gosh, sign me up immediately.
Speaker D:And it was not that at all.
Speaker D:It was not that at all.
Speaker D:Everybody, like, I dmed a bunch of people like, oh, share it on your story.
Speaker D:And we got everything.
Speaker D:Imagine we got, oh, did you get hacked?
Speaker D:Is this a scam?
Speaker D:This sounds like a pyramid scheme.
Speaker D:We got everything, Everything, everything.
Speaker D:Why, like, no high.
Speaker D:You're just trying to scam me.
Speaker D:Like, oh, the startup's not doing well.
Speaker D:You guys are, like, resorting to, like, scamming people.
Speaker D:Even my mom just couldn't really wrap her head around it.
Speaker D:She's like, she would tell people like, oh, Matthew's, like, begging Turkish Airlines for free trips.
Speaker D:And I was like, o.
Speaker D:And it was just like, nobody really got it.
Speaker D:I mean, even people who applied to the club and we went to festivals, everybody was like, it's a scam, It's a scam.
Speaker D:It's a scam.
Speaker D:It was.
Speaker D:We just stamped as a scam, basically.
Speaker D:And even.
Speaker D:Even people who applied and, like, were in the club and went through the entire thing thought it was a scam.
Speaker D:All the way up until they got their airplane tickets.
Speaker D:Like, everybody thought it was a scam.
Speaker D:It just didn't make sense to anybody.
Speaker D:And they just.
Speaker D:They just didn't see it, I guess.
Speaker D:But yeah, now I think that we did it and that people are really seeing the mission, seeing the vision that like they see what's possible and the opportunity that we're giving to people.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And it's especially difficult when it's your inaugural trip.
Speaker B:The very first time you're doing something and I know you don't see it, but you have to believe it.
Speaker D:Right?
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:Just trust me.
Speaker D:And there's nothing to lose.
Speaker D:Everybody who applied and went all the way through were just like, there's nothing to lose.
Speaker D:So we'll just do it.
Speaker D:Like if I get a trip, that's cool.
Speaker D:If I don't, at least I try it.
Speaker D:So it worked out for them pretty well because it ended up working out.
Speaker B:But yeah, yeah, clearly.
Speaker C:What are you doing to help destinations market to students?
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker D:So now that we kind of had our trip and we have that buzz on campus and like, you know, we're not labeled a scam anymore.
Speaker D:We're labeled as the coolest club on campus.
Speaker D:That was kind of what, a switch up.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker D:But it happened.
Speaker D:We want to our platform on campus to help destinations market.
Speaker D:So what we have done is we reserved space on the Diag for things like parents weekend, for things like homecoming, for all these big events.
Speaker D:We're looking mainly the Fridays before game days.
Speaker D:As you guys know, the big house holds like 114,000 people every single Saturday.
Speaker D:So there's campus is just active.
Speaker D:There's a whole bunch of people there.
Speaker D:We want to do these on campus activations for destinations where you could really bring the culture there.
Speaker D:For example, let's say Thailand, we're able to turn the Diag into Thailand, turn the diagonal to Fort Lauderdale, turn a diag into Tampa Bay.
Speaker D:Just really bring the culture, environment and everything to University of Michigan, to the students, parents and alumni so they could experience it, have that first taste and then kind of crave the authentic version is kind of what we're planning to do.
Speaker C:You just graduated computer science.
Speaker C:Congratulations.
Speaker C:That's a great accomplishment.
Speaker D:Thank you.
Speaker D:Thank you.
Speaker C:Unless, and I'm assuming kind of nudging you to go back and get your master's while you work, you know, throwing that out there.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:How are you still going to work with students in the travel group?
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:So kind of how we see it is we always wanted to be led by students.
Speaker D:We want to be very, very student centric, student focused.
Speaker D:And I'm no longer an undergraduate student right now.
Speaker D:So kind of where we see it moving is that me, Gabe and Hussain now act as like a national chapter where we're, you know, making the partnerships with different brands, different companies, just our national branding and just kind of organized as a national chapter.
Speaker D:And we have a new E board at the University of Michigan, new president, entire new E Board that essentially is taking over and running that chapter.
Speaker D:And I feel like it's a good thing.
Speaker D:Obviously, it's very like.
Speaker D:It also helps us be scalable.
Speaker D:Right now we're able to expand to more chapters, bring this opportunity to more people and just be able to kind of have like a copy and paste document where we could provide this opportunity to people across the entire country.
Speaker B:So I'm extremely curious.
Speaker B:I recently just flew Turkish Airlines.
Speaker B:It was a great experience.
Speaker B:But I'm very curious what made them your preferred partner?
Speaker B:And then during the partnership, like, I guess how did you get this partnership?
Speaker B:And instead of begging Turkish Airlines for free flights, how did you get these students on a plane?
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker D:So why Turkish Airlines?
Speaker D:Turkish Airlines just goes to the most countries out of every single airline.
Speaker D:So we knew we could take students everywhere and it could be such a long lasting partnership where we could just explore so many different countries and bring students to places they never even imagined.
Speaker D:Like I said when we were in Istanbul, people were saying I didn't even know Americans knew where Turkey was on the map.
Speaker D:And it was just like kind of funny.
Speaker D:And like, you know, when we took them, a lot of people didn't even have expectations.
Speaker D:They didn't even know what to expect, you know, so that's what I love about it.
Speaker D:And how we got the partnership was we reached out to the chairman, Professor Dr. Ahmed Bolad, and he actually went to the University of Michigan.
Speaker D:So that was a good alumni factor.
Speaker D:But he put us in contact with, with the VP of Americas Fatigue Damaz, and we were just able to kind of show what we were planning to do.
Speaker D:And honestly, out of everybody, Turkish Airlines was just the ones that believed in us the most.
Speaker D:They just, they saw what we could do.
Speaker D:They just said they had.
Speaker D:They loved seeing young people like trying to change things in the travel and just like, just think of this as like us helping you guys out.
Speaker D:Figure something out and make something, make something big.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker D:And now we're looking to just kind of help them with their marketing, kind of help with like different engagements on campus is.
Speaker D:And just really push out and show what Turkish Airlines and how far Turkish Airlines could kind of take you and how far they could let you go.
Speaker D:And yeah, we just feel like, you know, we're just very, very grateful For Turkish Airlines, kind of making the world a lot smaller.
Speaker D:We're able to get across the world just in one flight.
Speaker D:And yeah, it was just a lasting.
Speaker D:And we're just looking to make it like a long lasting partnership.
Speaker D:Great.
Speaker C:Other than a couple of the experiences that you just mentioned, were there any other experiences that helped shape how you approach marketing?
Speaker C:Now that you've been through that, your first couple experiences?
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:So you're saying the experiences as in like the trip?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker D:Okay.
Speaker C:Like the pyramid scheme.
Speaker C:That was a very good learning experience.
Speaker C:Just that alone.
Speaker C:You take that back to the lab and how can you now learn from that experience to continue to grow and foster and build your marketing, to continue to move forward with.
Speaker C:I mean, your growth in marketing, Whether you take it on the technology side because you're computer science major or you continue in traditional marketing or however you do it.
Speaker C:Was there any other experiences that may have helped shape how you want to approach marketing?
Speaker D:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker C:You're into travel marketing?
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah, we're all the way in.
Speaker D:So kind of how I feel, especially with that experience of just.
Speaker D:And it was very shocking, honestly.
Speaker D:We really didn't expect it, but we just feel like how important social proof is.
Speaker D:Even on campus being gay.
Speaker D:Were kind of talking about how we had like a bar crawl and there was like.
Speaker D:It was like the senior bar crawl.
Speaker D:You get like a $30 shirt and it gives you access to all the bar covers.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:And I was like, gay.
Speaker D:That doesn't make sense because there's like only two bars that charge cover and each of them are $5.
Speaker D:So it's like you're losing money.
Speaker D:It's like $20 for a shirt.
Speaker D:But it's just about like seeing everybody doing it and kind of like that fomo and I feel like that's very big in our generation and just having that social proof that like, you know, everybody has a shirt.
Speaker D:I need the shirt now.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:So we just leaning into that.
Speaker D:Leaning into like human nature and leaning into people thinking that it's too good to be true and questioning that.
Speaker D:Just kind of showing them one.
Speaker D:Especially now that we did it, kind of leading with that.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:Our flyer is essentially the same format, but now we just have students on the trip in all the pictures.
Speaker D:Before we just had like stock pictures on Google.
Speaker D:So it's just seeing the faces of the students.
Speaker D:Having our video where you could see students saying like, I thought it was a scam too, but it turned out to be the best group of my life.
Speaker D:And honestly, I met so much Friends from this.
Speaker D:And I've made so many relationships and so many, like, you know, bond with people and just kind of showing that human story, showing that human face, showing that human touch, I think is very, very big with marketing.
Speaker D:It's something I learned and just looking to kind of lean into that going on in the future and just showing faces, showing stories, showing testimonies, and usually using that, you know, content and that experience.
Speaker C:So would you consider student travel group influencers?
Speaker C:Travel influencers?
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:So I feel like we're kind of a new age of influencers.
Speaker D:Someone actually compared us to, like, the new version of, like, Rick Steves, which I didn't even know who Rick Steves was at the time.
Speaker D:I had to look it up.
Speaker C:I still don't know who Rick Steves is.
Speaker D:Yeah, he.
Speaker D:How I was told is, from what I remember, he like, dud, like, how to travel to, like, Europe.
Speaker D:Like books.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:And like, and TV shows.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Rick Steves been all over the map.
Speaker B:He kind of was the guy to go somewhere before you heard about it or sort of test it out before anyone else.
Speaker D:Right, right.
Speaker D:And I heard his mission was just to get Americans outside the country and, like, exploring a little bit more, which is very similar to us.
Speaker D:I mean, we're at a younger generation, but it's very, very similar.
Speaker D:And it's interesting in we did consulting projects where we like, polled a lot of the University of Michigan students to kind of get data and, like, see everything.
Speaker D:That's what our students did as, like, a taste into, like, how working in the travel industry looks like and just get them interested.
Speaker D:But we saw that as soon as students see that something's like, sponsored or something's like, you know, an influencer, they're getting paid by it.
Speaker D:They just immediately scroll.
Speaker D:It's just like, it's not credible.
Speaker D:They're getting paid to say this.
Speaker D:I don't really care.
Speaker D:Versus so there's not this, like, one Rick Steves that people want to listen to for in our generation more.
Speaker D:What they want to do is just look up things to do in Turkey and just see random people's experiences and see their reviews.
Speaker D:Like, that's what we have access to now.
Speaker D:Just with TikTok and Instagram and all the social medias, you could just see random people's experiences, and that's what they crave.
Speaker D:They just crave something that's authentic more than anything.
Speaker D:So that's kind of what we want to do as well.
Speaker D:Just keep the content being authentic, keep it being student focused, keep it being you know, kind of away from really sponsored material.
Speaker B:So I'd love to know what's next for you, but also what's next for student travel group.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker D:So we want to expand to more chapters in the coming years.
Speaker D:This next year we're still focusing on University of Michigan.
Speaker D:I just feel like I want to focus, get it right and then kind of copy and paste.
Speaker D:But we're planning a trip to Thailand next year, so that's super exciting.
Speaker D:We're currently in contact with the tourism authority of Thailand.
Speaker D:Kind of getting the trip planned out.
Speaker D:Still very, very much in the works.
Speaker D:We're thinking about Chiang Mai and Bangkok, but that's in the works.
Speaker D:And just really kind of getting that marketing piece going, getting our social medias going and getting some news publications.
Speaker D:Just getting the word out there that's really, really focused of this year.
Speaker D:Just getting the in person stuff and kind of getting that trip also.
Speaker D:Another thing that we're thinking of, I just wanted to talk about it is we're thinking, thinking of doing a game show, reality TV type thing for our trip.
Speaker D:So kind of what we're thinking is just like we want it, we want people to be able to like feel like they had the, they're on the trip with us, they're on the trip with the students.
Speaker D:We made a great video after, but it's just, just after.
Speaker D:It's just like a video you're not experiencing with it.
Speaker D:And especially with like, you know how content is today.
Speaker D:A lot like live streams, Twitch, that's like very, very big.
Speaker D:We want to do something where it's like a game show that we promote experience, like talking to locals and having that experience with locals.
Speaker D:So something we were thinking is like for example while we were in Turkey and everybody's at the bazaar is like bartering.
Speaker D:We were thinking maybe we had like four teams, three teams and each team has a certain budget and we just see like who could get the best deals, who could come up with like the best items and who could do everything and then kind of have students and everybody at home vote on which team did the best.
Speaker D:Maybe there's different prizes for who wins and things like that and just kind of make this content where everybody kind of like experiences it all together.
Speaker D:Right?
Speaker D:So that's kind of what we're looking to do.
Speaker D:It's very, very much an idea right now.
Speaker D:But I think we have the means to do it and we're excited.
Speaker C:I got a great idea for a game.
Speaker C:When you go to Bangkok to talk to get everyone to Talk to more people and find out about the culture and what's going on.
Speaker C:Find a central location, just an address, any building.
Speaker C:And depending on how many students you go, break everyone up into like groups of two or three.
Speaker C:Everyone turn off their phone and find that building by talking to as many people as you can.
Speaker D:Oh, wow, that's a good one.
Speaker D:And just see how long it takes for them to get there.
Speaker D:Wow, that's a good one.
Speaker D:And it's kind of like a raise.
Speaker D:That's a really good one.
Speaker D:Yeah, that's a really good one.
Speaker B:I'm hoping the game show is just the complete opposite.
Speaker B:I'm a big White Lotus fan, so complete opposite of anything White Lotus to happen, but same cinematography would be great.
Speaker B:And Thailand's so beautiful.
Speaker B:You're going to have the best.
Speaker B:I want to go so badly.
Speaker B:And it looks amazing.
Speaker C:So for students looking to want to travel more or maybe start their own travel initiatives, what would be some advice you would have for.
Speaker D:Yeah, I guess something that held us up for a long time was just feeling like we need an introduction to somebody or feeling like we had to figure it all by ourselves.
Speaker D:Once we kind of broke out of that frame, like, school of thought and just started emailing everybody.
Speaker D:I mean, our partnership from Turkish Airlines came from a cold email.
Speaker D:There's so many things that started from just a cold email and just reaching out to people.
Speaker D:And so many people were able to take the time to help us learn the travel industry, teach us things about things, like give us different ideas.
Speaker D:I mean, look at you.
Speaker D:You just gave us a great idea for the game and you'll probably see it in the game show.
Speaker C:Honestly, I'll be looking for that.
Speaker D:And it's just.
Speaker D:It takes so much people to make something great and special and just being able to use your network, reach out to as many people as possible, get those advice.
Speaker D:Have champions, have people that you could go to to ask questions about that just are in the positions that you want to be that know the people that you want to know.
Speaker D:Just kind of leveraging that.
Speaker D:And you're young, you know, like a lot of people, you know, if I don't know anything, it's like, oh, he's young.
Speaker D:It's like, fine.
Speaker D:I didn't even graduate college yet, so it's like, fine if I don't know anything.
Speaker D:So just taking advantage of that and just reaching out to everybody and just kind of making everything kind of come together.
Speaker C:That's pretty exciting.
Speaker C:That would definitely be.
Speaker C:It all takes that first step, right?
Speaker C:Like Aqua Talks, our podcast.
Speaker C:It started with, hey, what do you think about doing a podcast?
Speaker C:And then I asked Maddie about it and she had some ideas.
Speaker C:And here we are.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:You just gotta take that first step, right?
Speaker D:And just doing it.
Speaker D:I mean, we talked about it this a little bit, probably like a couple weeks.
Speaker D:And it was just a thought.
Speaker D:Honestly.
Speaker D:I had the idea and Usain and Gabe kind of told me I was crazy.
Speaker D:And then it was just like, once they saw, they're like, okay, let's just do it.
Speaker D:And I think school started in a week.
Speaker D:We weren't even official club until, like, September, October.
Speaker D:So, like, if you look this up on, like, maze pages where all the clubs are, we wouldn't show up.
Speaker D:So, like, we really, really looked like a scam just because how late we were.
Speaker C:But a lot of great ideas started with somebody telling that person, that sounds crazy.
Speaker D:Right?
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:And just believing in yourself and just try your best.
Speaker D:I mean, if it didn't work, it didn't work.
Speaker D:But now we have something that could be very, very, very special.
Speaker D:And we already did something very special.
Speaker B:Yeah, you've probably already changed some.
Speaker B:So many students lives with just this one trip and the trajectory of what they'll do or what they'll pursue.
Speaker B:Because, I mean, Istanbul is so beautiful and it's a lovely place to visit.
Speaker B:And I know, like, being there changed my life.
Speaker B:I'm sure it did for some students too.
Speaker B:That's awesome.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:No, I'll tell you about one of our friends, Jude.
Speaker D:So it was a week before the trip.
Speaker D:We're, like, going over logistics.
Speaker D:What to bring, what not to bring, what to pack, where are we going, everything.
Speaker D:And he doesn't show up.
Speaker D:So I call him, like, oh, Jude, it was an important meeting.
Speaker D:Like, I'm just gonna walk you.
Speaker D:And he's like, oh, I forgot to tell you, I don't have my passport, so I'm not going on the trip.
Speaker D:You're like, oh, no, that's horrible.
Speaker D:So Hussein, like, talks to him.
Speaker D:They get his mom to, like, ship his birth certificate over.
Speaker D:They get an expedited passport.
Speaker D:He goes on the trip.
Speaker D:He ends up going.
Speaker D:It was like a miracle.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker D:He loves it.
Speaker D:He actually had the best time, like, out of everybody, like, by far.
Speaker D:Like, everybody could agree.
Speaker D:Jude had the best time.
Speaker D:He's talking about he needs to move to Europe for a little bit.
Speaker D:Like, he was having a blast.
Speaker D:He comes back, actually gets an internship at United, and just finished up his internship at United.
Speaker D:The CEO Scott Curry actually posted him on his Instagram story It was just amazing.
Speaker D:He was giving a talk at the Forest 500 or Fortune 500.
Speaker D:And it was just so cool to see that he was taking advantage of the standby.
Speaker D:He went to Amsterdam, Tokyo, Jamaica, Paris, everywhere.
Speaker D:And he called me, actually, a little bit before Di.
Speaker D:And it was just like.
Speaker D:It's crazy how much this, like, changed what I think and how I believe about traveling.
Speaker D:And, like, you didn't even have a passport, you know?
Speaker D:So it was just seeing that already was just such a big testimony for us, just showing that we have to keep going and we have to get this opportunity.
Speaker C:Just got to take that first step.
Speaker D:Right?
Speaker C:That's the hardest step, that first one.
Speaker D:Exactly.
Speaker C:I love that all of these great experiences you have.
Speaker C:Tell us one that just sticks with you the most.
Speaker C:Anything.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:About something.
Speaker D:Honestly, the one that sticks with me the most, I guess.
Speaker D:Our biggest.
Speaker D:Our biggest, like, side quest was when we were in Greece.
Speaker D:I'll talk about two things.
Speaker D:Our biggest side quest was when we were in Greece, and we kind of split off in the group a little bit, and we found these, like, electric bikes, and we were just.
Speaker D:We were just like, okay, let's do it.
Speaker D:We were biking through the entire city of Athens, and I guess it's just not normal over there.
Speaker D:Everybody's taking pictures of us.
Speaker D:Everybody's taking videos of us because we were, like, on the streets and stuff.
Speaker D:Everybody was just so shocked that we were just riding our bikes.
Speaker D:But it was, like, just so much fun.
Speaker D:We were just actually having so much fun.
Speaker D:I have, like, a couple videos, and it was just, like, such a random side quest, random moment that kind of I will remember for the rest of my life.
Speaker D:That's just kind of what our trips are all about, and that's kind of what we all want to do and promote.
Speaker D:And then also a big thing that kind of notoriously, all of our students love was the boat trip where we were in Greece and we went to the Aegan Islands.
Speaker D:It was Poros, Hydra.
Speaker D:Hydra and Aguina.
Speaker D:And just seeing all those islands, all of us being on, like, one boat the entire day, it was just such a bonding experience.
Speaker D:I feel like we all got so much closer.
Speaker D:It was so cool to see, like, before all of our meetings, before.
Speaker D:Before the trip, it was, like, quiet.
Speaker D:We had to, like, do icebreakers to get people to talk to each other.
Speaker D:And then once we came back after the trip, our first meeting, it was so loud.
Speaker D:We had, like, quiet people down just to start the meeting, and just seeing how that experience made them all closer.
Speaker D:Together was just really, really nice to see.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker B:Your eyes are widening.
Speaker B:Greece.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Larry's dying.
Speaker D:You will.
Speaker B:You're dying to go to Greece.
Speaker D:It was amazing.
Speaker C:I'm get there.
Speaker D:Yeah, you'll get there.
Speaker B:Well, I'm curious.
Speaker B:As marketers ourselves and as Larry's the owner of a marketing company, I'm curious how we can sort of help students or help something like student travel group, or if there's anybody listening from a destination, how can they help you to further this mission and this wonderful project that you've made?
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:So there's a lot of ways I feel like just investing in the mission.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:Whether that's reaching out to us and doing even a guest speaker talk and inspiring kids that way, Even putting on a small activation, inspiring students that way.
Speaker D:Even we're hosting a career fair early.
Speaker D:Just coming out, maybe a recruiter or two to the career fair and just having students see the travel industry and professions in there.
Speaker D:Maybe it's like reaching out to us about different ways that we could partner on marketing and reaching more people.
Speaker D:I feel like it's so.
Speaker D:It's kind of overlooked how easy it is to inspire one person.
Speaker D:That one person can inspire so much people.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:And just taking that one step to do that, I think is just.
Speaker D:Can just go such a long way.
Speaker D:Can just go such a long way.
Speaker D:And we just encourage everybody to either on their own or, like, reach out to us and through us, just find a way and just we could find a way to, like, help one person and just put on one event and put on like, one talk and one career fair and one speak.
Speaker D:And I think that could change a lot of people's lives, as you could see already what we were able to do.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, congratulations for all your success and wishing you, like, way more continued success.
Speaker D:Thank you so much.
Speaker B:You should be, like, really proud.
Speaker B:This is really cool.
Speaker D:Thank you so much.
Speaker C:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker D:Definitely.
Speaker C:We look forward to hearing more.
Speaker C:And when you have some events come up or something like that, please reach out to us.
Speaker D:Yes.
Speaker D:Thank you so much.
Speaker C:Matty would love to come speak at one of your events.
Speaker B:Oh, we have to do it.
Speaker D:We have to do it.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:I'm just kidding.
Speaker B:No, no, we both will.
Speaker D:We'll go.
Speaker B:I would.
Speaker C:No, we definitely want to be part of that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:That's amazing.
Speaker D:Awesome.
Speaker D:Yeah, we could do that.
Speaker B:Well, thank you.
Speaker D:Thank you so much.
Speaker B:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker B:So if you're interested in learning more about student travel group or Matthew, please go to our website, aquatacs.com we also have all of our socials on there YouTube and you can find all of our other episodes too.
Speaker B:But thanks again.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker C:We'll make sure we have Matthew's socials on there.
Speaker C:Also, you can reach directly out to him.
Speaker C:If there's any destinations that want to be a part of the student travel group, please reach out to Matthew.
Speaker C:We'll make sure we have his contact information on there.
Speaker C:That'd be very helpful for the destinations and to reach out and market a lot more with student travelers.
Speaker A:You've been listening to aquatalks, where marketing innovation takes center stage with bold ideas and actionable insights.
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Speaker A:Until next time, stay bold, stay inspired, stay imaginative.
