Bob Papworth finds out how a TMC and a charity work together to help volunteers get to where they are most needed, safely and affordably
PICTURE THE SCENE. You are nominally responsible for a group of up to 20 young volunteer charity workers who are about to embark on an eight-leg round-trip to Cochabamba in central Bolivia.
They are relatively inexperienced travellers, laden with excess baggage – they’re staying for anything up to six months – who scarcely know one another and who, in common with most of us, are not overly-familiar with central Bolivia, let alone Cochabamba.
What could possibly go wrong? The answer, according to Anna Ling, programme co-ordinator in the global volunteering team at Christian charity Tearfund, is “nowadays, not a lot, actually”.
This was not always the case. Up until three years ago, Tearfund had “issues” with its TMC. “We were finding cheaper rates ourselves, and there was a problem with basic mistakes happening too often – in a few cases this included names being misspelled on tickets, and other basic errors,” says Ling.
The charity moved its business to not-for-profit specialist Diversity Travel, and the Tearfund travails were at an end as the business relationship blossomed. “Diversity provides a better service at a cheaper rate,” says Ling. “They are always extremely helpful and efficient, both in regards to their flight-booking service – providing quick and variable quotes – and visa services. The relationship between the two organisations is good.”
The feeling is mutual. “We see ourselves as providing professional advice with a personal touch,” says Andrew Lydiatt, Diversity Travel’s groups and conferences supervisor. “Although we do a lot of bookings for Tearfund, we never assume that a new booking will be the same as the one before. We take the time to find out exactly what our client would like us to do, and how. By working so closely with Anna and her colleagues, we start to really understand what they do, which builds stronger relationships.”
Lydiatt is complimentary about all his charity clients. “In general, we find our customers have a very good understanding of the travel industry,” he says. “They have to, because their line of work means that their employees and volunteers regularly travel to isolated destinations, at very short notice – for example, if they are responding to a humanitarian emergency. As a result, they soon get up to speed – and that’s certainly true of Tearfund.”
Given the nature of Tearfund’s key destinations – Cambodia, Uganda, Burundi, Malawi and Tanzania, to name but a few – there are two fundamental travel concerns which are perhaps untypical of more run-of-the-mill travel management processes: visas are required for many of the charity’s multinational travellers, and health, safety and security issues are paramount.
On the first, Diversity prides itself on operating its own in-house visa service. “We user our own staff to visit embassies personally with any and all applications,” says Lydiatt. “We don’t use couriers because our own staff have built good relations with embassy and consular staff. If there is an issue with a visa application, we know our employees will do everything they can to resolve it – we couldn’t have the same level of confidence in a courier, who may not have the knowledge – or the inclination – to do the same.”
Rather more critically, Tearfund’s Anna Ling places great emphasis on health and security. “Every participant who goes overseas with us completes an orientation weekend – or week, depending on how long they are going away for. In addition to more general training, there is a ‘safety in travel’ plan written for every team, with options for evacuation routes out of the country.”
Again, Diversity Travel goes for an in-house solution, providing its emergency support plan (ESP) free of charge. “ESP is not outsourced,” says Lydiatt. “Our senior consultants are on hand to provide our full range of services, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”
Tearfund itself mans a 24/7 emergency mobile phone service, and Ling stresses that part of Diversity’s brief is to ensure that travellers do not arrive at their destination late at night or in the early hours.
So much for the dramatic stuff. More prosaically, the very nature of Tearfund’s business means that Diversity handles a lot of flight changes. Couple that with the fact that out-of-the-way destinations often require multiple sectors on multiple airlines, one glitch can require an awful lot of re-booking.
For example, the most cost-effective trip to Cochabamba goes from London to Madrid, then to Sao Paulo in Brazil, and only then on to Bolivia – but to Santa Cruz, in the east, where yet another change is required for Cochabamba’s Jorge Wilstermann International Airport.
Lydiatt claims Diversity’s directors were instrumental in establishing the first charity fares in the 1980s, and the company continues to work with airlines – particularly smaller carriers operating on comparatively obscure routes – to negotiate fares and conditions for its client base. “The volunteers’ flights are loaded into our system under Tearfund’s name so that we can locate volunteers quickly in case of emergency, and so we can run management information reports,” says Lydiatt.
“We provide Tearfund with information on how far in advance volunteers are booking flights, the cost, and where they are travelling to. By analysing booking patterns we can advise Tearfund as to how their people could reduce their expenditure.”
And there is an emotional attachment. “It is rewarding, both from a company and a personal point of view, to know that we are playing a small role in helping charities to help others,” says Lydiatt.
“After the disaster has happened and the TV cameras have gone home, there are still people working and volunteering to take on some of the biggest challenges in the world.”
FOUNDED IN 1968, the year of the Biafran famine crisis brought about by Nigeria’s bloody civil war, Tearfund is a Christian charitable organisation – the name stands for The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund – active in more than 50 countries worldwide.
Based in Teddington, the charity’s global volunteering team sends more than 400 volunteers overseas every year, for trips of anything from two weeks to six months, to destinations across Asia, Africa and South America. The volunteers pay their own travel expenses.
The charity’s travel arrangements are handled by Manchester-based Diversity Travel, a travel management company specialising in the not-for-profit sector. The Tearfund team is led by groups and conferences supervisor Andrew Lydiatt, supported by travel consultant Jen Herbert and account manager Peter Bush.
tearfund.org
diversitytravel.co.uk