The study looks closely at 26 alumni travel programs relating key metrics and data such as revenues, costs, staffing, margins from travel vendors, average travel costs, repeat business as a percentage of total business, friends and family of alumni as a percentage of total business, direct mail costs, and overall travel revenue from many distinct parts of the world, such as Western and Southern Europe, China, India and many other destinations.
In addition the study presents advice from practitioners on a myriad of issues, from cooperating with other alumni travel programs to using faculty on trips to the role of alumni travel in overall advancement and fundraising goals.
The study also presents findings on the most popular destinations, the most popular or successful trips and much more. Data is broken out by size and type of college, by size of alumni travel program and other variables for easier benchmarks.
Just a few of this 88-page report's many findings are that:
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Colleges charging more than $40,000 per year in tuition spent a mean of 530 hours of staff time annually on their alumni travel programs.
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4-year colleges in the sample attracted a mean of 42.5% of their travelers from individuals who had taken trips previously with the college.
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Trips to India accounted for 2.73% of alumni travel revenues.
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China seems particularly attractive as a destination to small liberal arts colleges.
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The colleges in the sample sold traveler's health insurance to a mean of 20% of their travelers.