More operators and a greater variety of programmes are emerging in the study tours arena as more travel agencies take advantage of parents' desire to send their children away for summer study tours.
'Previously it was only formal centres similar to us offering these summer programmes,' said Christine Li Shui-ling, of Hong Kong Study Tours Centre, a long-established student tour operator. 'Now more travel agencies are stepping into the area.'
Travel tour operator MorningStar Travel Service organised its first two overseas study tours last year, heading for Adelaide in Australia.
'Offering these tours is a trend,' said Francis Ng Ting-wai, long-haul product manager. 'We also want to enlarge our business. We already provide golfing tours, food-tasting trips to different countries and we want to have more specialist group tours available.'
Mr Ng said the company was thinking of expanding with tours to the US, Canada and Britain. It had been organising mainland programmes for several years.
MorningStar works with an Australian travel agency experienced in student group travel and familiar with the Adelaide language school. Last year its two tours offered the novel idea of encouraging parents to go along too.
Another newcomer is Wing On Travel, which this year offers English-language and activity tours to Britain, Australia, Singapore, Canada and the mainland. The company launched its first study tours in 2004. This year, it plans to take 14 groups to Britain alone, according to Wilson Poon King-yan, assistant tour manager of the company's educational tour division.
