Is it safe for my child to travel abroad this summer?
With the recent changes in Washington many parents are asking themselves “is it safe for my child to travel abroad this summer”?
Watch our most recent info session to learn more about how we keep your child safe on a Rustic Pathways program.
In this session, we also address safety concerns about traveling abroad right now, how you and your family can make safety a priority while traveling, and dive into Rustic Pathways’ extensive safety network across the globe.
Safety Discussion Transcript
Introduction
Chris: “Chairman of the board for Rustic Pathways. We want to thank you for joining our presentation tonight. We are going to start off a little bit slow here as there are still some attendees that are dropping in. Before we get going, I want to introduce some of the other people that will be on this call. Bill Frederick is the founder and CEO of Lodestone, which is an organization that oversees safety and risk management for a whole variety of organizations that work throughout high school, throughout college, study abroad, and throughout MBA programs. He’s been in this field for decades, and he is an expert in safety and risk management in the student travel world. He’s actually currently at a conference presenting on risk management. Also on the line is Dave Dennis, who’s the Director of Safety and Risk Management for Rustic Pathways. Dave also has almost two decades of experience in looking at risk as it relates to travel programs. And then also on the line is Jesse Wachter. She is our Global Program Adviser who works with a lot of families. Jesse has been a Country Director for us, she’s run countless programs throughout all kinds of countries. A great person to field different types of questions that you may have, and she will be tending to the question box within the webinar software. If you have questions, you can type them in along the way, and she’ll give you personalized responses. If it’s an overarching question that will relate to other people on the call, we may hold that towards the end to give the benefit to the whole crowd out there.”
Main Topic: Travel Safety
Chris: “The main point of this webinar is to provide a platform so that parents who are either signed up for trips or who are interested in trips will have the opportunity to talk about safety. Right now, the number one question on a lot of people’s minds is, ‘Is it safe for my son or daughter to travel this year?’ And we’re going to dive into that on the call tonight. We’re specifically going to look at just four different areas. We’re gonna start with talking through some of the general risks while traveling. We’re gonna also talk about some of the general rewards of traveling, so that you as parents, as you’re doing this risk and reward type of evaluation, have a clearer view of how you want to approach the decisions for your sons and daughters. We’re gonna talk through the Rustic Pathways approach to safety and risk management. Dave Dennis will cover that part, and Bill Frederick can provide perspective on how other organizations look at their approach to safety and risk management. And then, as I mentioned, we’re going to end with a Q&A. We’re gonna leave at least 30 minutes for the Q&A. We want to create a town hall type of environment so that we can have the discussion about safety as it relates to student travel for the summer of 2017.”
General Risks of Traveling
Chris: “So to start off, we’re going to look at some of the general risks of traveling historically and in today’s environment. If you look at statistically, the top four risks of traveling internationally for students from 2006 to 2016, what you find are traffic accidents as the number one risk, followed by homicide, followed by suicide, and followed by drowning. These are the major things that we’re looking at as Rustic Pathways, the major risks that students face. There’s a whole variety of risks that we prepare for, but these would be at the top of the list statistically. And when people rank risks, they’re typically looking at the amount of time that an individual is exposed to a risk, they’re looking at the probability of that risk actually occurring and happening to an individual, and then they’re typically looking at the severity of the consequence if that risk were to occur in a situation. So again, these are the historical risks that we’ve looked at over the last decade.”
New Administration and Current Concerns
Chris: “As we head into the summer of 2017, there’s obviously a new administration in Washington. There’s a lot of buzz about what is going on with this administration, changes in policies, changes in their approach with how they’re dealing with other government officials around the world. The two things that we hear the most are that people are nervous about an increase in terrorism and people are nervous about an increase in anti-American sentiment around the world. At Rustic Pathways, we’re taking that very seriously. You know, it is new layers that we’re adding into our approach to safety and risk management. But we, as a company and the general student travel world out there, to be realistic as we’re heading into 2017, the greatest risks that students will really face this year come back to traffic accidents, homicide, suicide, and drowning. And I just want to share that because although there are chances of an increase in terrorism or although there are chances of an increase in anti-American sentiment, the reality for us as a travel provider is that neither of those will increase statistically in a way that dramatically affects the way that we approach safety. It’s a new thing to be aware of, but it’s actually something you’re seeing much more loudly in the media than we will typically face out in the field.”
Example of Media vs. Reality
Chris: “And just to provide an example of what we see every single year, there’s usually one or two of these things that are very common in the media. Last year, a lot of people were worried about the Zika virus. A lot of people were worried about traveling to Latin America, and in reality, mosquito-borne illnesses are a risk. But when you dig into it, malaria, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, those were all more statistically dangerous for our students and for our staff than Zika. And so one of the things that we’re constantly aware of, and what we want to share with you as parents that are making these decisions, is that obviously the media is in the business of creating a lot of sensationalized stories. We at Rustic Pathways and Bill Frederick and Lodestone and a lot of the other organizations in this field, we’re in the business of providing parents and teachers with the real statistical facts so that we can help families make a balanced decision.”
Balancing Risks and Rewards
Chris: “So as I mentioned at the beginning, there are inherent risks while traveling, but it’s not often the risks that you see in the media. It’s typically the more common situations that aren’t the exciting, sensationalized stories that you see in the news. In a few minutes, I’m gonna pass the microphone over to Dave Dennis, who’s going to share our approach to safety and risk management and exactly how we are preparing for these types of four risks and all the other risks that we face, and also the changes in the overall situation that we’re seeing with this new administration. But before I get to that, I do want to just quickly share some of the benefits of traveling so again, you as parents can look at a balanced risk and reward type of scenario.”
Benefits of Travel
Chris: “As we look at the major benefits of travel, we look at four large buckets that, to be honest, seem to be gaining momentum every single year. The first one is what I call the world in 2017. As you all know, we are living in a tremendously interconnected world, much more interconnected than it was in 2016, 2013, or the year 2000. To give you an example, here at Rustic Pathways, we have 287 employees in 17 states in 22 countries, and we conduct our business daily over video Skype calls, which are free and easy and fast for us to use as a business. Personally, I believe the world is going to continue to head in a direction where it is very globalized. And I know in the field of student travel and in the field of education, there is the belief that in 2025, 2030, near 2035, almost all the leaders that you’ll see in business, education, healthcare, and governments will understand how to look at problems, how to look at opportunities, and how to create solutions and how to implement them across country borders, languages, religions, and cultures. The world that my children will go into, that your children will go into, will be a world where there are less and less obvious borders.”
Shifting Perspectives and Self-Awareness
Chris: “The second thing that we see quite often is that our programs really shift the perspective of students and help them become more self-aware. It is very natural that through international travel, a lot of times with students, it’s their first time ever traveling overseas without their parents or their brothers or sisters. It’s very natural while traveling in the developing world, in remote communities, that all of the assumptions that students have about the world and how it works in their place within it become challenged. And as they’re eating different food and listening to different music and hearing different languages and watching different customs just happen in front of their eyes, it gives them the bigger picture of how the world works, and it starts to help them understand their role within it. And it helps them define who they are and then specifically what type of opportunities they have at their fingertips and the path of opportunity that they’re typically on as a student. Most often, our students return home extremely grateful for the situations they’re in and more energized to push forward in their life.”
Finding Passion and Purpose
Chris: “Which I guess sort of segues into the third thing we see quite often. Our programs really help students find their passion, find their purpose, and find their direction. As parents, you’re already investing typically a lot of money into your sons and daughters, a lot of times through high school, certainly through college. And what we find time and time again over the 33 years that we’ve been running programs is that our programs dramatically increase the return on the investment that you’re making into high school, making into college. And the reason for that is once again, by getting students out there, it allows them to look at the world in a different way, figure out what they want their role to be within that, and to start directing their education with more purpose. What we hear quite often, this actually happened to me personally, I returned from a study abroad program my junior year of college, and I knew what I wanted to do in life. You will hear that with lots and lots and lots of people who have studied abroad. They returned, and they become very passionate about what they want to do. We are a big fan of providing that experience for freshmen in high school and sophomores in high school so that the rest of that high school career and those college careers can remain a lot more focused.”
Development of Non-Cognitive Skills
Chris: “The last thing that we find quite often on the Rustic Pathways programs is the development of non-cognitive skill sets. So there’s cognitive skill sets and non-cognitive skill sets. Most schools, almost every high school, almost every college, what you will find is that the overall curriculum and process of learning is built on developing cognitive skill sets. So students learn information, they process that information, and they are tested and asked to put that information back on paper in different types of ways. That develops a lot of their cognitive skill sets. When you step back from the educational world and you look at the field of experiential ed and you look at the jobs people are going into, the top 500 companies in the world have stated overall that what they find that makes people successful in their jobs are the skills that transfer and are very often the non-cognitive skill sets like grit and like humility and like independence and a sense of wonderment. It’s those types of things that make people successful in the real world. At Rustic Pathways, we have a student impact tool that was created by some PhD students and has since been verified. We actually test students before they go on programs and after they return home, and we use the data that we find out to iterate our programs from year to year to create bigger increases in the non-cognitive skill sets. We’ve found statistically that students will increase up to 40% in their sense of wonderment or their willingness and wanting to help other people. So all this is to say that as parents, as you look at the real risk out there and the real reward, we want you to have the whole picture. We want you to have the statistical information. We want you making choices that you feel comfortable with for your sons and daughters in your family, but we want you to do it in a balanced way and not in an emotional way, getting information from the media.”
Company’s Commitment to Safety
Chris: “The last thing I’ll mention before I pass this off to Dave Dennis, which in my opinion, this is probably the most important thing I have to share, and that is just that at Rustic Pathways, we are parents. So I have three sons, Dave Dennis has a son and daughter. At Rustic Pathways, we have a family travel policy where all the sons and daughters of all the employees can travel for free every single summer. Dave Dennis, you know, his children travel with us. They traveled with us last year, they’ll be traveling with us this year. And please know that we would never ever put your son or daughter in a situation where we wouldn’t literally be putting our own children. And as the CEO and someone that constantly has my head wrapped around the safety for our students and our sons and daughters out there, please know that that is probably the thing that makes me be most comfortable and confident is that our own children are also the students on these programs.”
Transition to Dave Dennis
Chris: “On that note, I’m going to pass it over to Dave Dennis, who can share more of the specifics of how we actually approach safety and risk management at Rustic Pathways.”
Approach to Safety and Risk Management
Dave Dennis: “Thank you, Chris. I appreciate that. I know we’re living in this world of uncertainty, and there’s a lot of moving parts, a lot of changes, especially over the last three weeks. So I just felt it was important to put a little bit of structure, express how we are as an organization, and what we’re doing to keep children – mine, Chris’s, all of yours – in safe, protected boundaries in-country. And then we can go from there and answer any specific questions that we might have at the end. Here at Rustic, we have a tiered and collaborative approach to safety. We examine risk at varying levels and we’re able to compare what we learn and hear about globally with what is actually occurring on the ground. We don’t do this alone and we rely on trusted resources for safety, security, and travel medicine information. The first of our safety and security resources is the US, UK, and Australian state departments. These organizations are great. They help us monitor global safety and security, and they provide frequent travel updates to residents of their respective countries. My team and I spend every morning, every day reviewing these resources and gain a balanced perspective of what’s taking place around the world.”
Global Safety Resources
Dave Dennis: “The next is our resource and our partnership with HX Global, who is not only our emergency medical and evacuation partner, but they also monitor global events through their specialized safety security team. And the last of our resources, of our big broad resources, is the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC). This is a security and intelligence cooperation between the American private sector businesses operating worldwide and the US government, through the US State Department’s, the UK, Australian State Departments. OSAC offers insight from both a business and a government perspective. When we look into the medical side, the medical perspective of safety, we rely on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration again with HX Global to provide us specialized information relating to travel medicine, illnesses, preparation for students, everything else that we need from the medical standpoint. These organizations are critical when monitoring changes in regional and global aspects. So this could be the spread of Ebola in 2015, Zika in 2016, whatever may be around the corner in the future.”
Regional Safety: In-Country Operations
Dave Dennis: “As we narrow down to our next level, the regional level, I want to highlight here that the most important aspect to consider is that we own all of our local operations. We don’t outsource the delivery of our programs, and our management teams in each country are part of the Rustic Pathways organization. For me, this allows us, and this is the most critical point, because it allows us to remain aligned in our approach to safety while guaranteeing the trust and collaborative relationships between countries and internal structures. We structure each country with a hierarchy of management positions, if you will. We have country directors, we have country managers, we have program managers, and program leaders. The country directors obviously are overseeing everything that takes place, they are like the general manager of the country from a business and customer service standpoint. Supporting them is the country manager role. Then we dive down into the program manager level, and what happens with program managers is these managers will have one, two, maybe sometimes three programs that they specialize and focus all their time with. So as ongoing events, as itineraries need to be adjusted, as safety and security is fluctuating, these program managers are able to quickly and immediately place those changes into action. And then of course we have our program leaders. These are the people delivering our programs, these are the ones that are with your sons and daughters.”
Vendor and Embassy Partnerships
Dave Dennis: “We partner with embassies in every one of our regional areas in our countries. And what I mean by that is our country teams are having conversations with embassies, they’re going through their itineraries, they’re talking about issues or concerns that we’re hearing from a global standpoint, seeing how the embassy, how they’re relating information, what does it look like in their individual country in connection to what we as an organization are seeing as well. So we have a great footprint with the US embassies globally as well. We work closely with third-party suppliers. Our third-party suppliers are our transport providers, our accommodation, and all of the activities that we have on programs. A vast majority of those are outsourced to specialized businesses. We go through great extent to provide business assessments. We go in, we evaluate each vendor that we have, we talk about their employment practices, their vehicle and equipment maintenance, certainly we’re looking at licensing and permits and insurance, making sure our comprehensive approach in our long list of criteria are all being met. But not only are we verifying what they are as a business structure, but we’re also connecting with them again on the safety and security aspect. What that means is, as I’ve mentioned, we have our regional sort of resources, we talk as a country management team, but we outreach to our vendors as well. They’re not only these vendors are not only working with us as an organization, but they are working with other partners and other organizations and individuals as they travel. So by having connections, having dialogues and discussions with our vendors, you know, it’s giving us one more level of assurance of what we hear, what we’re aware of, and what is going on around the world is actually taking place. We can again quickly make adjustments. So if there’s a roadway that, you know, the conditions might be unsafe or there’s a village or an area that we need to be aware of, you know, something may be going on there locally, we’re able to make those adjustments, work together to make sure we get around all of these risky areas.”
Program-Level Safety and Training
Dave Dennis: “And third, at the program level, so it’s getting down to the ground level, first off, every program we have has a risk management plan. And what that means is we talk of not only with the itinerary and the day-to-day activities, but any known or anticipated risks that might be experienced on a program. We have an acknowledgment and assessment and then our plan of action in case that risk was to take place. We also include all the contact information for embassies, local hospitals, medical clinics, HX Global, the entire country management team, as if and as we need to escalate events and incidents as they take place, all of that information is contained within their management plan as well. We have a comprehensive list of activity standards. These are guidelines for every activity that we offer on a program. They have a set standard and expectation that takes place. The way this works is, for example, you know, every person riding a bicycle needs to be wearing a helmet at all times. Every boating activity that we offer, everybody must have an appropriately fitted personal flotation device that they’re wearing and actively using. These activity standards also support our business assessment process with our vendors. What I mean by that is, you know, the program leaders going out there, performing these activities, making sure safety briefings are taking place is our way of validating what the vendors from a business standpoint are telling us at a higher level, if you will, and that’s actually being put into place and actively utilized with our students.”
Training and Emergency Management
Dave Dennis: “Our program leader training, moving on to the program leaders themselves, our minimum age for a program leader is 23. In the US we have 24, and that’s because of a driving component. But from a medical and training standpoint, industry-wide, everybody is going to provide first aid CPR training. That is an industry-wide standard of every organization. But Rustic invests heavily in the medical training and certification of our staff. Every full-time program leader that we have on board is a Wilderness First Responder certified leader. What this means is when we go into remote areas, we’re able to implement medical protocols and specific training to make sure that we are handling and treating symptoms and issues that come up on program correctly. This is supported by our relationship with HX Global, of course, but our level of commitment is very unique, and our level of investment is very unique within the industry as well. We have two criteria where we must have a Wilderness First Responder on a program. The first is at any time we have a type 1 diabetic on a program. That falls into our high-risk category, so we are staffing with a full-time Wilderness First Responder. Second is whenever we have a program that has a remote destination, any point on the program that is more than two hours away from definitive medical care, we’re again placing that Wolfer onto a program. When we look at staff to student ratios, we always maintain a 1 to 7, so that would be a 1 program leader for every 7 students. Our more remote programs have a little softer, maybe a 1 to 5, 1 to 6 ratio, but we will never exceed the 1 to 7. We always have males, always have females on programs as well. That’s just because we want to be very conscientious and sensitive to gender-specific issues that may come up on a program.”
Emergency Management and Response
Dave Dennis: “When we move on to emergency management and emergency response, we have an entire escalation process and team built up. We have, first off, our program leaders. Again, we spend a lot of time during our training and our staff training that happens at least once a year. Some of our programs, some of our areas and our divisions, we offer twice a year training. But we dive deep into what does it look like, what are signs and symptoms and issues that we would need to escalate, what that would look like. The first step would be the program manager as a point of contact, and that can get escalated, any event straight up to the country director. Myself and my team are certainly here to support those teams as well, get involved with anything on the larger scale that may come up. We also have a crisis response team, which consists of all of our executive leadership. So this is our CEO, Chris, our CFO, all of our vice-president team, and our operations directors. We have a very comprehensive crisis management plan, which we update frequently. We run annual simulations on this plan as well. So we are always focusing, always talking, and always running simulations both at regional levels and the executive levels to make sure that we are adhering and growing and evolving as our ever-changing world is evolving as well.”
Partnership with HX Global
Dave Dennis: “I’m very proud to say that Rustic has never had any deaths on programs. We’ve had some significant issues. It’s not entirely uncommon for a student to have an appendectomy or an appendicitis on program, so that’s when we really rely on our professionals and our escalation process to help resolve these issues that can be very time-sensitive and very impactful, obviously, for students while they’re traveling. This ties me into HX Global and what that partnership looks like. As I mentioned, they have a safety and security aspect and division of their business, but their primary focus is medical guidance and emergency evacuation. So anytime we have a student that is coming down with an ongoing illness or they have a physical injury, we’re reaching out to HX Global because they have an entire staff of doctors and nurses that can help us and monitor situations. They can also refer us to medical clinics, hospitals, and appropriate doctors to handle any type of situation that might be encountered on the ground. We also have within Rustic a Director of Mental Health and a Medical Director on staff as well. So all our entire team is collaboratively working as well depending on what situation might arise.”
Responsibilities of Students and Parents
Dave Dennis: “Before I pass this back over to Chris and if Bill has any comments, I first wanted to talk a little bit about international travel in general because there are obviously a lot of concerns and as I mentioned, uncertainty taking place. But I just don’t want families to feel like they could put all the reliance on Rustic Pathways. Students have responsibilities, parents and guardians have responsibilities, and I am really pleased, and what I love about Rustic Pathways, is we spend a lot of time and investment in building trusted networks and building bonds and collaborative approaches. What I mean by that is if your son or daughter has a medical or physical limitation, if they’re seeing a therapist for ongoing concerns or whatever their evolution and pathway to adulthood might look like, we want to learn about that. We want to talk about it and make sure we can put into place the small program adjustments, whatever we need to do in order to safeguard that. So a large part of our open and transparent dialogue that we have during the enrollment process focuses on building this collaborative and teamwork approach.”
Global Sentiment and Safety Evaluations
Dave Dennis: “When I’ve reached out to our country directors prior to this call, I was inquiring about what the overall sentiment looked like from the US perspective, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear that there is not any notable increase in anti-American sentiment going on. There have not been any increased travel warnings going out for individuals for traveling abroad in our dynamic. But what I think we need to pay attention to is again, how are we connecting with the Rustic Pathways on the ground? What are these support mechanisms and risk management practices? How stable are they? How fulfilling are they? And then work with parents to have conversations, have discussions just to make sure everybody is working together collaboratively and aware of what’s going on.”
No Anxiety Policy
Dave Dennis: “Before I transition, we are doing one more thing to benefit families as this ongoing situation continues. So let me pass this back over to Chris and have him touch base on that. Thank you.”
Flexible Travel Policy
Chairman: “Thanks, Dave. So for any parent that is currently enrolled in any of our programs or any parent thinking about enrolling this year, we’re reinstituting a policy that we’ve had in the past during uncertain times or difficult, challenging times, and it’s a very, very simple no anxiety policy. If any student or any parent feels nervous about traveling up until the day of the trip, they can contact us over email, over the phone, and say, ‘You know what, I’m just really nervous about my daughter going. I think we’re going to hold on until next year.’ We understand that everyone is trying to look at the real risks, real rewards, trying to make balanced decisions for their family. We want to make that easier for people. You can scroll your ground fees for up to two years after the day of canceling. You can use those funds for any open enrollment trip or school group trip, or if the family wants to travel, you can use it as a family credit, and we’ll send you an escrow certificate for the value retained as an escrow. The only component that would be lost is money for airfare that is nonrefundable. Obviously, airfare is well out of our control. But again, we want to make it as easy as possible for families. We don’t want this to be a difficult year for people.”
Transition to Q&A and Bill Frederick’s Insights
Chairman: “With that, we’re going to open up for questions and answers, and I’m actually going to just ask Bill Frederick if he has any overarching thoughts or comments or other things that he’s seeing in the field or heard at the conference this weekend that would apply to the conversation here.”
Bill Frederick’s Insights
Bill Frederick: “Yeah, thanks, Chris. I’ll give my two cents. Certainly, the question on most parents’ and guardians’ minds is, ‘Is it safe to send my child abroad?’ And the answer is actually, ‘No, of course, it’s not safe.’ Is it safe to keep your child home? No, it’s not particularly safe to do that. It never has been safe. It’s all a matter of trying to figure out what’s a reasonable risk and what’s not a reasonable risk. And the most current or most recent recurring issues that have been of concern is the quickly changing hazard landscape. Primarily, certainly, the things that have been in the media have been about emerging and re-emerging diseases, which we certainly need to take very seriously, but we also have to sort of take it with a little bit of realism. The number of certified cases of Zika that resulted from the Brazilian Olympics was zero. And the fact that Ebola was on the front pages of the New York Times for six months, as somebody in the New York Times pointed out, more Americans have been married to Kim Kardashian than have actually gotten Ebola in this country. Not to minimize the concerns for that.”
Environmental and Terrorism Concerns
Bill Frederick: “Another issue is the environmental issues that have mostly gotten press for having not a greater number of tropical cyclones but certainly tropical cyclones of a greater magnitude. But the real effect of that has been most of the refugees coming across the Mediterranean have not been fleeing political violence in North Africa. They’ve been fleeing a lack of economic viability in sub-Saharan Africa, and that’s changing study abroad in Africa. It’s changing study abroad in Europe, certainly, and among other places. The one that’s been getting most of the attention, of course, is terrorism. The profiles of terrorists have evolved quite a bit over since 9/11, through the Madrid and London bombings, to the Paris and Belgium bombings, and the lone wolves and all that stuff. It’s certainly a concern. And now we’re very much aware that terrorism could happen anyplace at any time, but it’s also worth noting that study abroad students, outside of the Lockerbie bombing, have very, very rarely been victimized by that. And up until the San Bernardino bombings and Orlando attacks in the United States, most terrorist events on US soil had not been by radical Islamic groups but by domestic political groups, generally right-wing groups that were anti-abortion or whatever.”
Evolving Strategies for Safety
Bill Frederick: “For the last twenty years, some of the evolving strategies for study abroad in terms of better information acquisition, better communication, better access to real expertise when you have problems that you need to solve, better training, better systems, etc., I would venture that study abroad is probably safer today than it was twenty years ago. And the real question for a lot of people right now is, ‘How is the new US administration’s America First policy impacting study abroad?’ And as Dave said, there are no reports coming from any study abroad groups that they’re receiving a hostile reaction, at least not for the outgoing students. People that are recruiting incoming students to go to US schools, they report getting a pretty chilly reception. But just like after the Second Gulf War, which was not particularly popular internationally, most countries are not blaming individual travelers for what they see as the US government’s decisions. And certainly, we’re not very far into this new administration, and that could change at any point. But certainly, at the moment, no one, absolutely nobody, is reporting that from abroad.”
Encouragement for Global Experiences
Bill Frederick: “Each family has to make up its own decision around whether or not they want to send their child abroad, but no one believes that the world’s going to become less globalized anytime soon. And the best way to prepare your children for the challenges in the future is to ensure that they have experiences that make them comfortable doing that. And that’s about it. There’s some interesting questions here at this conference. A lot of people are asking about the impact of the new administration, and everybody’s talking about it, but nobody has any sense yet about it going in one direction or another, other than they’re not hearing anything from the field that even in places like Mexico, where you might expect people to be a little testy over what has been said about Mexicans, they’re not getting any bad receptions. That’s all.”
Q&A Session
Chris: “Alright, well thank you very much, Bill. We’re now going to move towards the just general question and answer for the families that have joined us. If you’d please type your question into the question bar, Jesse will sort through those questions, and we can field those as a team of four.”
Jesse Wachter: “Pretty quiet on our end. Have a question. Looks like we’ve got a parent interested in any security issues in our Morocco programs. If you want to answer that one, I could.”
Dave: “Yeah, Chris, I’ll jump in. Sorry, I had muted myself. So, ironically, I talked with our country director in Morocco this weekend, and there is not, again, no increase in what’s going on in Morocco. What the dynamic looks like now, last year, we did a pretty extensive review of our programs in Morocco because there did seem to be an uptick on threats of terrorism around the country in the broad spectrum, if you will. So we did a lot of due diligence and auditing, if you will, of the destination. So we feel good with where we’re at, and that’s been confirmed with the embassy. The biggest concern from what I’m hearing is the state of the economy. This is not even in Morocco, but you know, globally speaking, if you will, what changes are gonna happen in the economy? What kind of funding or support that the US is offering, is that going to be changing at all? But nothing really specific that would change the dynamic of our program or really give a rationale for somebody not to travel to Morocco this summer. Ironically, my daughter is considering Morocco. We’re gonna pull the trigger and finally confirm this travel plans this week, and it looks like she’s going to be going to Morocco as well. I’m a parent first and foremost, so I wouldn’t be putting her in any harm’s way as well. I am benefited because I have this direct dialogue with our country team there. But again, nothing is really coming up to us that would raise alarms. Certainly, if that does change and evolve, we would take appropriate action, and we are not afraid to cancel a program, cancel a country. We have done so in the past. If the threat of terrorism or overall safety and security is not at a level we would be satisfied with, we would take action. So, you know, it’s not just me blowing smoke here. Again, this is an evolving situation, but nothing right now is telling us that there’s any undue alarm going on in Morocco.”
Chris: “Thanks, Dave. I do want to let everyone know that we are recording this presentation, so if at any time you would like to listen to it again, or if you missed a part, or even if you have a friend that’s interested that wasn’t able to make it, give us a call. We can definitely send this recording out to you, and we should have it on our website this coming week.”
Jesse Wachter: “Chris, can you talk to personally how many students we have traveling with us this year?”
Chris: “Sure. We should have about 12,500 students travel with us this year. We’ll have probably around 5,400 of those students traveling with us during the June, July, and August time period, which are students that are coming from all over the world, and they join together in these little groups and travel with each other out into the developing world. Open enrollment programs are quite magical because students are coming from all over the place, and then throughout the rest of the year, we have teacher-led group programs, and then we also have gap year programs. Overall, in the course of a year, we’ll also get students from 80 different countries in the world. So one of the neat things for Rustic Pathways these days is in the summertime, if you are traveling with a student or traveling with a group of students, you know, quite often you have some students from New York, Dallas, Texas, San Francisco, California, and then students from France, South Africa, and the Middle East all on one trip. But overall, about 12,500 students should be the target for this year.”
Chris: “Okay, it looks like that is the last of our questions. Does anybody else have anything they’d like addressed?”
Chris: “Okay, fantastic. Again, thank you all for joining us tonight. Safety and managing risk is at the highest level of priority for Rustic Pathways. We’re excited when parents get engaged in that conversation, when students get engaged in that conversation. If you have any questions outside of that, you can reach me at chris@rusticpathways.com. You can reach Dave Dennis. I’m happy to forward on emails to Dave Dennis. I don’t have his email address off the top of my head, but please feel free to contact us anytime if you have other questions. We really appreciate you taking the time this evening. Thank you very much, and have a good night.”
To learn more about our approach to safety and risk management, click here. Read about our safety policies and get alerted to any safety risks affecting our programs or the specific regions in which we travel.