Students are on the move. From now until late April, they will be flying, driving and busing to places where they can relax in the sun on their spring break.
Cancun, Mexico, is the No. 1 foreign choice, according to those in the business of selling student travel, followed by Negril, Jamaica. In Florida, Daytona Beach is the top draw, expecting 300,000 young people this year, with Panama City on the Gulf Coast coming up fast.
“Ft. Lauderdale does not exist,” one operator said. Ft. Lauderdale, which by 1985 found itself unhappily awash in student bodies, elected its non-existence by hotel and beach ordinances and through heavy promotion aimed at other sources of tourists.
The travel agents agreed that students wanted a beach, preferably with an easygoing atmosphere, a hotel on the beach, possibly with a kitchenette, and a minimum of trouble to get there. Florida is cheap and accessible. Mario A. Ricciardelli, owner of Take a Break in Boston, a tour operator, said that a Daytona bus-hotel package with four or five people sharing a room might cost $239 each, depending on the week they chose to go.
Daytona has a rule against alcohol on the beach, but students flock to the pool decks on the beachfront hotels, according to Suzanne S. Heddy, vice president of the Daytona Beach Chamber of Commerce. “No kegs, no beer coolers on the beach,” Heddy said. “But our enforcement is fair. We don’t go around opening coolers unless people are inebriated or hostile.”
In Jamaica students prefer the Caribbean atmosphere of Negril to the more citified Montego Bay; reports of crime in Montego Bay may also have an effect, one sales agent said, “especially if parents are paying for the trip.”
Cancun responds to the need for a beach at hand with the bonus of a Latin atmosphere, the agents agree, and if the students want to take a trip overland, there are several cultural attractions.
Tourism officials in Cancun had no figures for this year, but airport samplings last March showed that 12 percent of arriving travelers gave “student” as their occupation; the figure for February was 3 percent and for April 5 percent. The total of United States visitors in March was 137,000; in February 110,000, and in April 106,000.
The people selling to students said that running out of money or overspending on a credit card were the two main hazards in beach areas where students were expected and welcome.
One agent said he recommended traveler’s checks: “Then you know how much you have to spend.”
Larry P. Joseph, Eastern region director for Council Travel, a subsidiary of the non-profit Council on International Educational Exchange, said Cancun had been the popular place for four or five years, drawing students from almost everywhere except the West Coast. For Cancun, he said his agency was selling a week in a hotel on the beach (based on two or more people sharing a room), and a round-trip flight for $600 or $700. In New York, the agency uses tours packaged by Friendly Holidays, Asti and Travel Impressions. The branch in Boston uses GWV and TNT.
Joseph said his agency’s offerings were not the bottom in price; less expensive packages, he said, may not feature beachfront hotels, or may require costly add-ons. He estimates that nationwide Council Travel sells 250,000 trips a year to students and youths.
At the Greenwich Village office of the second-largest United States student travel center, STA Travel, the manager, T. Fintan Smith, was in the trenches with his computer and spring break packages. To get space in Cancun and Jamaica, he said he used whatever packager had space. For Jamaica, his choices are Sun-splash or Take a Break, and for Cancun, STS, Friendly Holidays or Travel Impressions.
“Why Cancun?” he asked. “It’s where it’s happening, same as last year.”
He said that if the agency got other customers who wanted to go to Cancun-the office is at street level and gets a walk-in trade-“we warn them it’s spring break time and they will be surrounded by students.”
An STA flier offered a package with round-trip air fare and seven nights in Cancun, four to a room, starting at $479. At STA in Los Angeles, a spokesman, Jesper Lykke, said that annually his company’s offices in the United States sold 90,000 air tickets; worldwide, for 1992, he said the figure was 600,000.
Ricciardelli said that overall he was sending 1,500 students and youths to Cancun this year, with the peak of the movement from New York State on Saturday, April 3.
“We’re sold out for that week,” he said, “but we’ll probably find some more space.” He uses charter airlines: Miami Air, Aero Cancun, Taesa and North American.
In air-hotel packages, which often use charter flights, buyers of any age are welcome. But Council Travel and STA also sell tickets on scheduled airlines at deeply discounted youth and student fares. These are not the same as the youth tickets that some airlines sell directly; to get the airlines’ own fares, the traveler must be under 26 and the ticket is sold only three days or fewer in advance. Often these fares are the same as excursion fares, but with maximum and minimum stays waived.
On the other hand, the agencies’ student fares constitute an area that is not well understood, even by airline front office people, because the agencies offer these fares under contracts negotiated annually with each airline. The details are not publicized, and everything is up for grabs on the basis of volume. The maximum age can change, as can the ability to take a spouse along and the availablity of the fare to a graduate or faculty member.
To “keep a cap” on who uses the fares, as a Continental spokeswoman put it, the contracts specify an age limit. Most require that the student status and age be verified by an International Student Identity Card, which is issued in 70 countries to people 12 and over.
The photo card, which costs $15, is issued by Council and STA as well as other student travel agencies on the basis of a registrar’s declaration or other school verification. It also provides sickness and injury insurance underwritten by the National Union Fire Insurance Co., part of the American International Group in New York. An International Youth Card or International Teacher Identity Card, issued through the same channels, provides similar benefits.
Council Travel has 42 offices in the United States. The main New York office is at 205 E. 42d St. (212-661-1450); there is a subsidiary office at the New York Youth Hostel, 103d Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
STA has 10 offices in the United States and 110 overseas. There is an office for Columbia students and faculty in the Student Union. The main office in New York City is at 48 E. 11th St.; (212-477-7166). For phone sales from outside New York City, the number is 800-777-0112. –
