Full service tour operators should be able to make organizing a great band trip easy – including the payment for that trip. Tour companies should provide ways to accept individual online payment for each band member. However, there’s often the question:
“What about fundraising and booster money?”
It’s a valid question! However, we’re here to state for the record that bands absolutely can utilize hard earned fundraising and booster money, while still enjoying the convenience of individual online billing. Read on for practical tips on how to strike this balance and make planning your band trip easy and responsible.
Get That Money
This may seem obvious, but the rule of thumb is: acquire the funds you anticipate using for your band’s trip and then move on to the matter of how to use it.
Enter The Amount Into The System
Let’s say your band hauled in $1,800 in a successful fundraiser and now you’re ready to use it toward the big trip. With Green Light, your first step would be to login to the online registration and billing system as a trip leader and enter in the amount the band earned. To clarify, this is simply a declaration of how much your band is submitting as a bulk credit, not a payment or submission of funds.
Decide How To Divide
The next step is to decide how these funds should be divided among your band. Should they be distributed evenly among all passengers? Just the students? Or should specific amounts go to specific passengers? The choice is yours and easily designated within the online platform.
Send The Funds And Relax!
From this point, the only thing left to do is transfer the funds to your tour operator. With Green Light, the funds can be mailed in as a check or wire transferred. Once received, it will be confirmed that the amount is correct and the instructions you provided on how to apply the funds make sense. Before you know it… the bulk payment is approved and each passengers’ online account will reflect the application of those funds.
That’s how simple it should be to use fundraising and booster money to help pay for your band’s trip while also using an individual online billing system. We’ve found that facilitating both payment methods is an effective way of encouraging maximum participation in band trips.
Can We Do Even More?
We love helping bands use fundraiser and booster money to make their band trip dreams a reality, but it got us thinking, is there even more that can be done? What if individual band members could raise funds…for themselves?
At Green Light we’d like to give your members the ability to do just that this upcoming travel season. Our vision is that once registered, your members will be able to generate a link that they can share with generous family and friends to help contribute to their travel expenses. Essentially these contributors will be able to make simple online payments towards your members’ travel expenses. We believe this could make it easier than ever for members to be included on your band trips, which could lead to even higher numbers of recruitment and retention for your program.
Keep On Raising The Bar
Of course there would be no fundraisers, boosters, or band trips without you: the hardworking band director that puts in the hours to make it all happen. Consider Green Light and the entire student group travel community an extension of your program designed to support your efforts. The truth is, we all have overlapping goals: give these students something worthwhile to do so they can become the best versions of themselves. Rest assured we’ll never stop helping you achieve that goal, just like we know you’ll never stop working towards it yourself.
____________________________________________________________________
It’s not too late to plan a trip for 2024! Consider a multitude of other destinations to excite and enrich your performance groups in the upcoming year. Either way, Green Light loves to see groups traveling, performing, and reaching their goals, and we’re happy to assist in that process however possible.
Green Light Group Tours is providing this FREE download of tried-and-true tips and suggestions for creating the best travel experience ever! Instant download available HERE. Ready to request a quote for your next band trip? You can do that HERE.
Special thanks to our business partners Green Light Group Tours and Erik Young for this article. Green Light specializes in exciting and educational travel experiences for your students.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.