As official travel partners of Interkultur and the World Choir Games in New Zealand and Australia, and the National sponsor of New Zealand Choral Federation (NZCF) The Big Sing, Tour Time are super excited to announce that Auckland, New Zealand are the hosts of the 13th World Choir Games in 2024.

With Tour Time being the official travel partner of the World Symposium on Choral Music (WSCM2020) that was to be held in NZ from the 11-18th July 2020 (that was cancelled due COVID), we are excited to again have the opportunity to showcase our 100% Pure New Zealand culture and our amazing choral scene to the world by hosting the 13th World Choirs Games in Auckland, New Zealand in July 2024.

We can't wait to hear your voices soar in New Zealand in 2024!

Contact us to learn more about packages that will be available for Choirs and Individuals

Hear Brent (Tour Time Director) speak about the importance of financial bonding.

Today we want to share with you the first and most important question you need to ask any operator who you are considering partnering with.  It is a simple question and requires only a yes or no answer, but the answer should make or break your decision to work with the company you’re talking to.

Are you licenced and financially bonded? If the answer is “no”, your answer should be “no thanks”.

So you’re setting off on a group tour and the time to refine your list of potential Tour Partners has come!  You’ve achieved step one and know which companies are financially bonded, so you’re secure in the fact that your money is safe…the next step is to ensure your travellers are safe!

Groups tours aren’t quite like booking individual travel.  There are many different individual needs to be considered and when you’re travelling with youth it’s even more critical to make sure you choose the right provider as Duty of Care requirements aren’t always that straight forward – so you need to make sure you work with a company that understands this.

Therefore, the second (and equally critical) question therefore you need to ask a potential travel provider is: Do you have the correct health and safety and duty of care procedures in place to ensure our group are safe?

Tour Time have set the benchmark for Health and Safety in the group travel and school travel sector over 28 years, and have updated protocols in place for travel in a Covid World; for when the time is right to travel again.

Working with a specialised group provider, rather than just someone who books your flights, means that you will be able to rest assured that they can tell you that they:

• Audit all transport operators and accommodations for appropriate Health and Safety requirements to ensure your group safety

• Understand the Duty of Care requirements of working with Youth (i.e don’t accommodate youth in hostels expecting them to share bathrooms with the public!)

• Can cater for and adequately account for your members individual health needs, allergies and medical conditions – they know who is travelling with you and ensure that your providers know too

• Have First Aid trained Tour Managers available on every tour

• Can assist you with completing RAMs as required, as lets face it, no one calls these fun!

• Will ensure that any fixtures arranged are with a SUITABLE competitor, not just an available one

• Are available 24/7 when you’re on tour to help with ANYTHING that crops up…and they will answer the phone

A good tour partner will take away the worry and the “what if” for you.  You will know that your money is safe and YOU are safe. It’s worth making sure these two critical factors are ticked off before you even start comparing prices… because these two benefits are priceless!

Group Tour preparation can be daunting… even if you have experience arranging them, the idea can seem completely overwhelming… so choosing the right partner to assist you is your first critical step to tour success. 

Today we want to share with you the first and most important question you need to ask any operator who you are considering partnering with.  It is a simple question and requires only a yes or no answer, but the answer should make or break your decision to work with the company you’re talking to.

Are you licenced and financially bonded? If the answer is “no”, your answer should be “no thanks”.

What does licenced and financially bonded mean?  It means at the most basic level that the company that you are talking to cannot use your tour funds for ANYTHING other than your tour.  No paying for rent, or power, or wages, or the staff Christmas party… the funds are held in an individual bonded, audited bank account to pay YOUR suppliers and YOUR costs when YOUR tour departs.  It’s as simple as that…your money will always be there to fulfil your tour.  Your money, simply put, is safe.

In New Zealand the bonding authority is TAANZ (Travel Agents Association of New Zealand).  https://taanz.org.nz/ TAANZ hold its members to a higher level of accountability and only companies who stand up to their rigorous checks and audits will be accepted; so when you are working with a TAANZ bonded company, you know that you’re dealing with a reputable and ethical company with the best business practices, who will ensure your funds are secure.  It is even a Ministry of Education best practice guideline for Schools to use a TAANZ Bonded Company.

So, there you go, Step 1… the most critical step of all… by choosing a licenced and bonded tour partner, you’re stepping out on the right path to an incredible tour experience for you and your group. 

You’re getting towards the tail end of your plans now.  You and your team have put in a lot of thought about your Where Tour, to What and Why… and now we need to chew over the last bite as this will help your partner finalise the plans and then you’re all go!

The HOW – there’s a few considerations on how this will work

Taking the decisions that you’ve made to date, you now you need to tick off some of the finer points of your plans.  This will flesh out your plans and allow you to form an itinerary and quote that fits the bill.

When?  What’s your timeline? – Do you need time to do extensive fundraising?  Are you travelling in the school holidays (this isn’t ideal for an exchange tour when people are away)? What’s the weather going to be like for outdoor concerts? What will your payment timelines look like? Is it on or off season where you’re heading for your matches, so will there even be a team to play?? There really are oh so many things to think about! 

How many are travelling?  Will you be taking just your core choir or sports team, or do you have a long list of supporters wanting to join you?  What’s your Duty of Care requirement for Adult Supervision?

How long do you want to make this meal last?  How many performances and choral workshops will you want?  How many training sessions and how many games?  Just how long will be stay in each location to then offset your sightseeing that you will want to do?  Can you actually afford to stay that long?

Which brings us to Budget … do you really need to go to Disney?  Some activities and venues will profoundly affect your end cost, especially if you have a small group.  Think carefully about what is important and what is just a nice to have.  Oh, how interesting…this leads us back to the WHY…!  What a circular elephant you’re eating, aren’t you glad you’ve got an expert on board?

The Super Niggly Questions: Will you be travelling with musicians who need to take their instruments along?   Do you need an ambulance on hand at your game, just in case?  Will there be a translator on hand to ensure we don’t do the wrong thing?  My multicultural group is travelling on international passports…now what?!

Most importantly, how can you reduce your stress..?  Your expert provider should be able to help with all these things.  They should be able to remove all the challenges and make the process smooth from here on in. 

Can you see why it’s important now to put so much effort into choosing someone who understands the group travel market up front?  Like truly understands it? You’ve got your itinerary and your quote now, your tour is everything you ever wanted and it to be and that’s because when you take the elephant one bite at a time you can only ever come out with a great outcome.  Now that hard part …. Wrangling the group members!!!  Oh my goodness!

The next bite will determine where the dart lands on the globe, as we take the next bite of this tour elephant. This is where the knowledge and expertise of your tour partner really shines through! 

The WHERE - Now you know your reasons…lets plot a course!

Performance Tours - because practice makes perfect.  If you’re looking for an audience you can’t go past Argentina, where music performances are consistently packed out. Or Singapore where the audiences are keen to hear from choirs/ensembles from other cultures, or Europe to perform in some of the most stunning Cathedrals

Festivals - for the prestige of participating … and winning!  The truly competitive amongst you will find a range of amazing festivals around the globe to tempt them.  Europe has Summa Cum Laude, Festival Corale Internationale Di Roma, Salzburg Choir Festival and the World Choir Games.

Exchange Opportunities (bringing out the best in you!) If you’re looking to share an exchange but not travel too far, why not consider an Australasian tour where you can compare your Aboriginal Culture to the New Zealand Maori culture. 

Cultural Experiences: if you’re looking for new experiences then again, you might want to consider the passionate culture in Argentina… or head to Japan to immerse yourself in their culture. Or to Europe to explore the incredible history the region holds.

Elite Training: In our experience you simply can’t go past the USA as the hub for some incredible training experiences for basketball or diamond sports…or England for football… Argentina for Hockey and Rugby… or at home here in New Zealand for a Rugby training tour with the world champs!

We could carry on, the world is a huge place, filled with endless opportunities to meet your WHAT and WHY.  Obviously at this point we have to admit that budget comes into it a little too… we’ll explore that more later, but lets face it…the further the plane travels the more expensive the flights are, so talking to your experts here is pretty important, they can talk you through the real benefits of whether you stay close to home and go now, or if you wait a bit longer and save a bit harder to go further.  They’re the experts after all!  And because they’re financially bonded, your deposits are safe while you wait!  Aren’t you glad you chose them?! 

You’ve spent some important introspective time getting to know your motivation… good stuff… now you need to talk to your partner about the next bite of the elephant and understand how to achieve your tour goals.

The WHAT – choosing the right kind of tour
Having looked at your purpose you can now more easily chose the type of tour that feeds your purpose.

Music Groups

• Performance Tours: You’re proud of your choir/ensemble and you want to share your passion for music with the world?  Great!  We all want to hear you! 

• Festival Participation: You’re the competitive type, eh?  You’ve invested endless hours in perfecting your choir/ensemble, now let’s show that it was worth it by proving that we’re the best. Festivals around the globe will give you the chance to do that.

• Musical exchange opportunities: connection and personal growth is a lofty goal for any choir/ensemble.  Exchanges have less “performance” and more “sharing”

• Unique WOW experiences: This is where you get the chance to dream big, to set a Big Goal - Carnegie Hall, St Peters Basilica, The Great Wall of China… what’s your Big Goal?

Sports Groups

• Friendship and Match Exchanges: You just wanna get out and play the sports you love and make new friends…and why not, you’re awesome people, lets go be awesome somewhere cool!

• Training Tours: Your training has gone as far as it can at home?  Lets go find some new experts to take your training to the next level! 

• Tournaments: Time to put all your skills to the test and show the world how talented you are… world beating Kiwi’s!!! Tournaments are the way to go! (Or a mixture of Matches, Training and Tournaments)

Special Interest Groups

• Religious Tours: Pilgrimages bring the bible to life for their group members in a spectacular way or fellowship tours will allow you to connect with people who share your faith and allow new friendships to be formed

• Train Tours: Enthusiasts from around the world descend on New Zealand to see our spectacular scenery and do a little bit of trainspotting along the way

• Anything goes: A special interest tour is as individual as the tour participants, so this is where sitting and talking about your WHY will lead to a world of WHAT as an experienced and specialist tour provider will know just what to do to make it special.

The leg work is done when you chose your WHO, and determined your WHY, and will now lead you on a very new journey with your provider as you digest the WHAT… because the WHAT is actually almost an elephant on its own.  New Zealand and the world hold so many opportunities for you if you just take the time to look outside the box you’ve been holding on to for so long.  So, the next question is WHERE provides you with the opportunities you’re looking for?!

So your first bite of the tour elephant was choosing your partner who can ensure your financial and group safety… NAILED IT!  And now here we are at the next bite!

The WHY – looking behind your decision to tour?

The beginning of every tour starts here: All tours have the same starting point, no matter where you are…working out why. What is your end goal? What are you trying to achieve? What is driving you to even tour?

This is going to require some self-examination

• If you’re a Music Teacher or Choral Director, you may want to gift your students the opportunity to see what other cultures have to offer with their music. You may want to prove yourself on the international stage and win an award or two.  

• If you’re a Community Choir, your committee may want to put all your practice to use and share your hard work with the world. 

• If you’re a Sports Coach, you may want to put your players to the test, they’ve gotten complacent playing the same old team, they need to extend themselves or you may just want to find a trophy to take home to put on the shelf

• If you’re a Spiritual Leader you may want to help your congregation reconnect with their faith in a deeply personal and real-life manner! 

• Reasons are an individual as the people involved….

As part of this process, you will need to figure out who your key stake holders are and then talk openly, as your reasons drive the choices you make next.  If you’re not on the same page as the rest of the stake holders in the venture, your tour may well choke.

Without a purpose there can be no plan: once you define your purpose and reasons, move forward quickly to maintain momentum, if you don’t take this all important bite, you will literally be taking a wild punt at the type of tour you’re wanting to achieve and be left feeling unfulfilled.  It is important to do this leg work now to ensure that the rest of the bites are palatable.

When you’re looking at reasons why you’re touring, you need to be fully honest with yourself.  One of the best reasons we have had is a MD from California telling us that she takes her choir around the globe to create global citizens… her tours are experiential and are built on relationship forming and understanding so that her young choristers go back more aware of the world around them and that they move head in their lives as true global citizens.

So – What’s making you tick, what’s your motivation… plain and simple…WHY are we even talking?  Next time we’ll look at the type of tours that match your WHY as we move on to WHAT.

Awesome, you’ve found yourself a licenced and bonded tour provider who understands the intricacies of working with groups!  CONGRATS! You’ve chosen a great partner!  Now…where are you going to go???  What next?  Time to get down to the nitty gritty.

Touring is a huge undertaking;  we understand that especially at the beginning it can seem overwhelming and just too big a task to start on…which is where most tours fail, in the planning stage when you realise just how huge this elephant is…however when you break it down and take a bite sized approach, you too can see your plans come to life.  It’s as easy as breaking it down into a series of words that we can ALL understand.

 Who - Engage experts!!  Look at you go, you’ve already done this

Why - What is the driving force behind your tour plans?

What – What types of Tours are there to achieve your goals?

Where - Destination Selection!  Where in the world should you go?

How – A million things to consider…where to start?

You might already have a great idea on how this tour experience looks for you, you might even have a previous tour plan that you’re wanting to relive to make this whole process easy… so now is the time to sit down with your experienced and knowledgeable provider and go through the above and nut out the real reasons behind your travel - as that will drive you towards the perfect tour experience. 

We’ve broken these questions down further to help you understand exactly how to get this tour elephant eaten…

The New Year is two weeks old today. And as proof that Tour Timers rarely have their feet on New Zealand soil, I am in fact on a plane today from Houston to Phoenix.

My first trip of the 2019 has included an exploratory trip through Space Center Houston to check out the facilities for our USA Science Tours. As you’ll all no doubt know, Tour Time have a commitment to always inspect every facility we visit with our young Tour Timers, for both Health and Safety purposes and to ensure the educational benefit of each activity. Needless to say, I was not disappointed. It is hard not to get excited when you’re faced with the reality of the extraordinary leaps humanity have taken in their reach for the stars.

As New Zealand enters the space race with its regular launches by Rocket Lab from their site on the Mahia Peninsula, students are becoming ever more interested in looking up to the skies. And the pure fact of it is that STEM skills are becoming ever more important as the world turns ever more digital… and our Science Tours are a great way to take the classroom out into the real world and get some real life experience of whats being achieved out there.

On the back of our visit to Houston, I also attended the National Development Summit for Rugby in the USA. Its amazing to see our national sport gaining even more of a foothold in the US market. The coaches are committed to developing truly world class teams, and as a destination, the USA offers the chance to not only play local developing teams, but to also get a taste of the immensity of the world out there for NZ players.

All in all I’ve had a blast on my visit to Houston and look forward to more excitement in Phoenix before I head home to spend time with the family before the School Holidays end.

If you want more information on either Science or Sports Tours to the USA, get hold of us in the office on info@tourtime.co.nz.

Happy New Year and here’s to an excellent 2019 full of opportunities.