Safety and positive learning experiences are top two concerns for parents
Like many areas of the education industry, although the participants in study tours are students, the customers with a final say are their parents.
While many parents that send their children on study tours are not sensitive to price, they expect more from a study tour than simply having a good time as they cost more than an ordinary trip.
Mission Education’s report on the study tour industry shows that more than half of the parents who send their children on study tours do so to allow them to see the world and make friends. And safety and the learning experience are the parents’ top two concerns in choosing study tours for their children.
As a typical young middle-income parent with a higher education background, Wu Jing, a communication professor at Peking University, has sent her 12-year-old son A Gu on domestic and overseas study tours several times.
In the Changbai mountains in Jilin province, A Gu and his friends enjoyed dramatic landscapes and experienced local customs; in Weihai, Shandong province, they saw how fishermen live and gained a better understanding of the fishing industry.
When A Gu was only 10 years old, Wu sent him on a 20-day scientific exploration tour of the North Pole, during which students visited, observed and conducted research on scientific frontier issues including the polar environment, geological evolution, biological diversity and global climate change.
The polar exploration tour provided a rare opportunity for students to conduct scientific research. Many middle school students who participated in the tour published research papers and won domestic youth science and technology prizes after they returned from the tour, which will help them apply to overseas universities. This is one reason the exploration tour, which costs more than 120,000 yuan per person, attracts so many students and their parents.
Wu, who considers herself a relaxed parent, didn’t expect too many academic achievements from her son because of the trip. For her, it provided an opportunity for him to experience nature. “I just thought it would be cool to travel to the Arctic Ocean and visit the Polar region when I first heard about the exploration tour program,” Wu said. “It will be an important memory for him as the Arctic Ocean is melting due to global warming.”
But Guo Ren, a global partner at Beijing Yingke Law Firm’s Shanghai office, thinks there’s not much time left for her 11-year-old daughter Deng Guo to participate in study tours that are mainly for fun, due to increasing academic pressure.
The sixth grader has just come back from a cultural exchange program in Russia. As a dancer with the Shanghai Hand-in-Hand Youth Art Troupe, she had a wonderful time in Russia with local adolescents.
This visit was the first time Deng had traveled abroad without her parents. Although she faced some difficulties such as doing her laundry, she never felt homesick or lonely in Russia.
“I enjoyed the trip very much,” said Deng, “and I’d love to dance around the world with my friends.”
Guo is still planning to send her daughter on overseas study tours, but mainly for academic purposes. She plans to send her daughter abroad during winter vacation next year to study at a US primary school together with local students for one month.
Guo expects this study tour, which is expensive, will help her daughter improve her spoken English. “Many families I know have sent their children on similar overseas study tours,” she said.
Although many parents spare no expense when it comes to their children’s education, not all parents are willing to send their children on study tours. Wen Jin, a mother of a teenage girl, said she won’t send her daughter on a study tour because of safety concerns.
“I feel worried about my daughter traveling alone without a guardian, because I have heard too many tragic stories from the media,” Wen said. “Given that children are not always able to protect themselves, I will not send my daughter on a study tour alone before she is 18 years old.”
Su Bangxing, co-founder of study tour organization LTBH, admits safety is a significant issue for study tours, especially those in remote areas.
“We take multiple measures to ensure the children’s safety during study tours,” Su said. “Meanwhile we also encourage families to participate in our parent-child camps to dispel doubts.”
To some extent, parents’ preferences and concerns shape the study tour market, and the industry can only thrive by meeting the needs of the families.