Tour Operators are more specialised that they make sure that the destination helps the student in their education i.e. art students going to Venice to do their art and to learn about the art history of this destination also to view the stunning attractions and amazing collections by artists who were known in the world over for many year.
The history of a real school tour operator
School Travel Service (STS) was founded in 1933 by H. Victor Groves. Groves was a language teacher who took tours abroad from his own school. Victor was so successful his friends and colleagues invoked his help for their tours until eventually there was sufficient potential for turning a school tours organisation into a business. Demand for tours soared and the company soon diversified into ski trips which became the favoured choice of British schools in the post-war years. Through the years, STS not only developed a range of educationally inspiring tours but also pioneered tours to previously inaccessible parts of the world.
In the 1960s STS organised boat and train tours of the Soviet Union allowing students to cross the geographical and ideological frontiers where politicians had previously failed. As they prepare for 2011, STS remains at the forefront of school travel - tailoring an exciting range of existing tours to the specific requirements of schools as well as introducing new and exciting destinations to their brochure. The success of STS can be attributed to the traditions of customer care and attention to detail encouraged by their founder, upheld and complemented by their dedicated team of travel professionals.
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Comprehensive Travel Insurance
Fully comprehensive travel insurance is included with public liability cover for Party Leaders.
How to book
Tourists (organisations) need to register to book online or they can call on the given number on the STS website.
Dark tourism
Dark tourism is the temporary visitation of people to formal or informal visitor attractions, sites or exhibitions which offer presentation and interpretation of death and associated suffering as their raison d’être.
Different types of dark tourism can be as follows:-
Dark Exhibitions: Tourism products that encourage educational reflection on death, suffering or the macabre. They also tend still to have a commercial focus, but are more aimed at commemorating the dark events on exhibition, than entertaining customers. Examples include the Smithsonian Museum of American History exhibit 'September 11: Bearing Witness to History', which contains very few artefacts (only 45 in total). The exhibit doesn't even show images of the airliners approaching and crashing into the Twin Towers. The museum prefers to use photographs of eyewitnesses to tell the story.
Dark Shrines: Based on the act of remembrance for the recently deceased. Dark shrines are often located close to or at the scene of a death, and usually within a short period after the incident which led to the death. Roadside tributes of flowers laid to commemorate death through traffic accidents have become increasingly popular in this country. Media-reported deaths of significance for people can also lead to similar informal tributes, as in the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Initially non-commercialised, these dark shrines are often relocated and become far more commercially oriented, as in the Diana memorial at Althorn House, near Northampton, England. Other examples are Ground Zero, New York (site of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre, destroyed on what has become known as 9/11), also Marc Bolan's shrine at the spot where he died in a road accident in 1977.
Dark Conflict Sites: War and battlefields fit into this category and their use as tourism sites have been known about for centuries. Tourists are recorded as having visited the scene of the Battle of Waterloo even as it was being fought in 1815. The battlefields of the First World War were also first visited soon after hostilities ended and are now well established tourism venues, but their purpose is more about remembrance than celebration. Here, education is mixed with paying respect to those killed in conflict, locating the scene of relatives' deaths, and contemplating the meaning and value of death on a mass scale. But local authorities and entrepreneurs in more recent war zones may envy the business opportunities of commercial gain rather than learning.
Around the world there are many locations where tourists can take part in dark tourism some of them are as follows:-
- Castles and battlefields such as Culloden near Inverness, Scotland, Chernobyl in Ukraine
- Bran Castle, Poienari Castle in Romania
- Sites of disaster, either natural or man made such as Ground Zero in New York
- Prisons such as Beaumaris Prison in Anglesey, Wales
- German extermination camp at Auschwitz in Poland
- Purpose built centres such as the London Dungeon
- Ghost tourism in Scotland
Before the 21st century Dark tourism, there used to be public execution where crowd came to see the death, also the Romans used to fight in sites and die there, people were still attracted to it and had the will to approach and assist. In the ancient times people have been enthusiastic to stop at places where battles, massacres and wickedness took place.
There are very few Dark Tourism tour operators, and most of these are specialised Battlefield tour operators. Many of them help people to trace loved ones who were killed at war and locate their burial ground. However Dark tourism Tour operator is not as much developed, tourist who will want to go to certain sites will have to do some research on how to get there independently and know what they will be doing and see and put together their own package holiday.
The motivations of tourist taking part in Dark tourism can be:
- Some tourist are fascinated with death and natural disaster
- The media showing a certain place will influence the choices of a visitor
- Maybe to feel the suffering
- Preserve the site
- Interest in history
- Morbidity
- Heritage to education
- Remembrance of famous people that mark the history
- Trace love ones who where killed at war
These are possible motivation on why tourists are visiting these places.
Battlefield tour operator products and services
Battlefield tour operator provide a professional, caring, service for those seeking an alternative to the more commercially-orientated tour operators.
Services: - Somme Battlefield Tours Ltd helps those seeking details of relatives buried on or near the Somme battlefield and take photographs of specific graves/cemeteries etc for those who are genuinely unable to visit the grave of a relative for whatever reason (especially those living far away)
For some people it can be ethically right and for some morally right for them to take part in dark tourism. It can help them reconnect with something or someone they have lost who took part in the war and died in such place. It can be a way of remembrance to go and visit such place. However I think it is not of use to visit these places for fun and being fascinated by disaster but it is useful if they use it for educational purposes i.e. for historical or cultural reasons.
History of the War Research Society and Battlefield Tours
The War Research Society and Battlefield Tours was founded over 20 years ago by policeman retired police officers, ex-service personnel and friends, The War Research Society has taken thousands of pilgrims, veterans, widows and children to visit the battlefields, memorials and resting places to the areas of the First and Second World War in Northern France, Belgium, Turkey and Italy.
How to book: The brochure contains details of all the battlefield and memorial tours and additional tour information, departure times, National Express connections, and booking forms, it can also be requested by email, phone or post.
Ground Zero in New-York in remembrance of the 9/11
After the attack in New-York on World trade centre in September 2001, it been decided by the local and family of the victim to put up a place of remembrance which is knows as Ground Zero and its now a memorial place with picture of victims everywhere, on phone booths, street lights, walls of subway stations. A museum has been put in place which shows pictures of the events. In 2011 there will be a new site opening 'Reflecting Absence', which will have cascading waterfalls with illuminated reflecting pools at the site of the towers. The names of the 2979 people who died during the attacks that day will be inscribed around the edge of the waterfalls.
Research shows that in 2008, 47 million of people came to visit New-York especially to come by Ground Zero which is a must see in the city.
Since the opening its really a benefit for the local, they are even making profit on the visiting by charging visitors with a fee of $10 per entrance, which they use for charity and things needed to help in the development.
