jetBlueNYFL

Hello all,

While browsing the Special Interest Travel forum, I noticed the following sections:

• GLBT Travelers
• Women Travelers
• Traveling with Children
• Traveling with Pets
• Disability Travel
• Seniors Travel
• Religious Travelers

I hereby propose a forum for student travel to be created. This is an area that, IME, boasts many active frequent travelers - whether for studying abroad, commuting between home and school, spring break, vacations, backpacking, extracurricular conferences/meetings, college visits, etc. This area of FlyerTalk will cater to current members who are students, as well as attract an array of new members. The student travel forum will revolve around everything related to student travel.

Thanks for your time,
JetBlueNYFL

lin821

In case you missed it, have you visited Budget Travel Forum yet? Even it's not for students per se, Budget Travel Forum already covers quite a few things you mentioned.

I am not saying student population is not important since I am a student myself. But I know FT good enough that the demographics of FTers are very skewed towards folks with high earning/spending power. There are quite a few other sites that gear towards students. I am not sure FT needs to "compete" with those well-established student-centered websites.

jetBlueNYFL

Thanks for the feedback! I am aware of the Budget Travel forum, but feel that not necessarily all student travel equates to budget travel. Especially since you mention the demographics of FT as mainly having high earning/spending power, I am sure that many members have children who are in fact well-traveled students. This can encourage them to join our community now (at a young age); after all, today's students are tomorrow's high earning/spending travelers! In addition, while I agree with you that there are an abundance of well-established student travel web sites, I would also like to point out that there are a great deal of religious, women, pet, etc. travel web sites as well. I don't think it means FT is "competing" with those by adding a student travel forum; instead, it would just be enhancing the current offering.

trekkie

Flyertalk has increasingly been used as a marketing tool both by Internet brands as well as the various corporate lurkers.

Students have traditionally been targetted by marketers for their potential spending power and influence to the older demographics in their spending power. Students have also been influencial in being trend setters and influencing fashion, music and techology.

The budget travel forum currently may not have much traffic a other sub forums such as GLBT, women's travellers etc.... but it is a source for travelling within a tig budget which is what most students need. But students and youths also fancy forums to discuss issues like dating, socialising and connectg with other students and may also fancy a thread on "coach surfing".

There is currently discussion on shutting down the seniors forum where most readers so far have supported and the "supposedly originator" rudi has explained the forum was opened due to his request to Talkboard. as a reader, i would prefer consistency not decisions made "due to trends or current sentiment."

Flyertalk crrently does have a lot of segmented travellers like women's travellers, GLBT, and increasingly students. Most students normally us the forum to search for cheap or discounted premium travel. There is a big scope however if flyertalk expands the budget foum title to say student and budget travellers and if the content does link to student socialising websites and what not.

i suggest that the the title of budget forum be renamed instead to student/budget travellers and im sure Internet brands wuld have no problems with filling in additional ad revenue from companies targetting students.

gj83

It seems to me that the need is being met already.

For many the Budget Travel meets their needs. For others the regular forum should do.

The word student is so vague now. We have many FTers who have been in the work world and are now back as full or part time students. I have noticed threads this week about choosing a school for a Masters and one about status while earning an MBA. Those needs were met with Omni and the SPG forum.

I say leave it as is.

BiziBB

...of miles and points!

Hi jetBlueNYFL,
We're ALL students here.
Some are teachers, too.

If you read the information about this TalkBoard forum, you will find that it is a group of elected FTers, representing all of us, who are used as a sounding board by Randy (most of the time).

TalkBoard can recommend changes on FT, like the new forums, but it's really Randy's baby, run as his own benevolent dictatorship.

Thus, a great idea might be put into use by Randy, or a terrible idea might be debated here. Hopefully there is a solution that's not terrible and then Randy can listen and act or ignore that recommendation.

My understanding of TB is that this group's task is to be the sounding board for Randy. Experienced people here will put their points in for or against ideas like yours.


Your proposal seems to be based on the logic that if a forum for a sub-group of people exists, then why not add more sub-groups.

The counter-argument I see here today is that Budget Travel has many of the bases of students covered. Do students have a LOT of very different travel issues, than non-students? Are there lots and lots of people whose questions and discussions on student travel are sitting awkwardly in other forums?

I think you need to argue, with evidence to support you, why adding another forum will be a substantial improvement. Search through this forum to see the arguments for and against the many special-interest forums: especially Seniors, Single Travelers, Men and so on.

Im hope that this is useful in your quest.

Cheers,
BB

[In the absence of compelling evidence I can't see much support for your current proposal.]

Rudi

did I really?

trekkie

sorry, misread your post on "that" thread. Your stements were very credible and very impartial.

chornedsnorkack

Does Student Travel belong together with budget travel - or together with Travel with Children?

ArtfullyUrs

Please explain ... How could you even think about putting Student Travel with Travel with Children ???

peteropny

Oh paging lucky

lucky9876coins

First of all, thanks for the suggestion, jetBlueNYFL. I'm a student as well, and I could definitely see myself using the forum (if created). Unlike others in this thread, I think budget travel and student travel are two different topics. Many "students" nowadays are better at beating the system, have elite status on airlines and with hotel programs, and rarely fly coach, all while living on a college student's budget. If you look at the various "looking young and being elite" threads, you'll see that many college students have top tier status in the various programs. Heck as a student on a budget, I stayed in a Jimbaran Suite at the IC Bali, flew Lufthansa First, stayed at the Conrad in Hong Kong, and much more last year, but I doubt that would fit well in a budget travel forum.

Anyway, I'm just trying to demonstrate that they can be two different things. All that being said, I'm not entirely convinced that there's a need for a student travel forum. While it would be nice in theory, I think a lot of student travel topics fit well into other forums. For example, if a student wants to travel to Japan for spring break, you'll probably get a lot more information in the Japan forum than any potential student travel forum.

Of course it would be nice to have our little corner of FT, but I'm just a little bit biased....

chornedsnorkack

Because students are children, or treated almost as if they were. Flyers constantly boast about how front end of planes and elite lounges offer free alcoholic beverages, and judge airlines by so doing. This is a big problem not only for teenagers, but for people who are or could plausibly be accused of looking like 20. Car rentals often treat 24 year olds as children. Students at spring breaks, vacations etc. have problems like inability to contract for other than necessities (is travel ever a necessity?) and refusal of suppliers to sell even necessities. See, for example, the policies of United Airlines:
http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,1052,00.html
In other words, unaccompanied minors and adults will get shelter, but teenagers, and twelve year olds, will be thrown out into snow.

Dovster

You can blame me for this.

The original suggestion, made several years ago, was for a back-packing or "Youth Travel" forum.

TalkBoard was not interested in it, but when I was elected I pushed for it, albeit changing it to "Budget Travel". The intention was to include hostels, back-packing, LCCs, and anything else which helps those on a low budget enjoy travelling.

I never questioned that it would be a major asset to students but I did not want to restrict it to them as there are other people who can't afford luxury hotels (and some who don't enjoy them) but still want to travel.

tcook052

If you insist.

Why not call it split the diffference and call it Student or Budget Travel? Yes, I know they're not always one and the same but I can't see why appealing to both groups couldn't work. Just MHO of course.