It's a great relief to teachers, parents and students alike to have almost everyone back in school as the new academic year gets underway. The government has made a number of statements suggesting that the priority now will be to keep schools open, even at the expense of businesses, should restrictions need to be put back in place as the winter wears on. But some elements of music education are still some way from resuming ‘normal service’. School concerts and musical theatre performances are some examples, and school trips and music and sports tours are, sadly, another. All the fun things, really…
While the travel industry as a whole was hard-hit by the lockdown and our slow release from it, surely one of the most difficult parts of the travel sector to be in at this time has been that of group tour organisers. Jamie Boyden, joint managing director of Rayburn Tours, which has been facilitating adventures for schools groups since 1965; and Chris Stacey, sales director of Halsbury Travel Group, designing school trips by teachers for teachers since 1986, each talk about the challenges they have faced at this extraordinary time, and what happens to school and youth-group music tours in the Covid era going forward.
‘It was quite messy,’ Boyden remembers, ‘We could see it coming, because we had groups in China, or who were meant to be going to China, and that was the first place that got shut down. Then Italy, which is our number one destination: it was actually our ski trips that began to be really badly affected. We had scenarios where a destination hadn't shut down yet but the airport was in a shut-down area, so even though we might have been able to perform the tour, we couldn't actually get there. And then every day new restrictions were announced and it was very difficult to keep on top of it all.’
‘It was crazy,’ agrees Stacey, ‘When it all kicked off we'd be telling groups what the advice was in the morning, and by the afternoon the advice had changed and we'd be having to re-do it, and let people know what the latest was. It was so fast.’
Playing on: woodwind players participate in an outdoor concert in Noordwijk, The Netherlands (Image: Halsbury Music)
It has taken months for both companies to deal with the many tours that were planned for 2020, cancelling or postponing one by one, working on a case-by-case basis with groups, to ascertain what insurance cover they had, or whether they wanted to move their full itinerary as planned to a date next year or even the year after. With up to 70 per cent of staff furloughed, teams at both companies worked to re-plan a total between them of over 1,500 tours.
Lean in: Students pose in Pisa (Image: Halsbury Music)
These trips are a true highlight in the school careers of the students who go on them. ‘Our aim is to facilitate, to put together that wonderful experience of touring as a group, and send kids abroad so they can experience different cultures and play to locals and tourists in some wonderful venues around Europe and worldwide,’ says Stacey, ‘I think our advice is “keep planning” – it's a great carrot for kids to turn up to rehearsals and really get involved and invested in the band, orchestra, choir, if they've got that trip at the end of it and they know that something they're working towards is going to provide them with that fantastic opportunity.’
Boyden agrees: ‘A lot of teachers have said to us that they want to give the kids something to look forward to because lockdown's been really tough on the students, and a lot of the parents, too.’ So how does tour booking work in the age of a constantly changing pandemic?
‘The good thing in our industry is that tours tend to be booked anything from six months to two years into the future,’ Boyden tells me, ‘we're already selling tours for 2022, because they need a lot of organisation and it takes a long time for parents to get the money together.’
There are two key areas in which concerns are arising for parents and teachers at the moment: health and safety, and financial security. On the first matter, Boyden says to me, ‘it is being reported that the majority of children are much less affected by the virus, therefore we are finding that most of the questions we receive from parents are related to what would happen if their children get stuck in a destination, or if a teacher was to get ill, what will they do to make sure that the ratios are still there to look after the kids.’
Rayburn Tours has been holding parents’ evenings on Zoom during lockdown to address these fears about trips that are booked into the future, and now that dust has settled from the initial scramble, there is time to plan more carefully for these eventualities on trips from now on. Regarding the finances, ‘Most of the insurance companies unsurprisingly have run a mile from any kind of cancellation reimbursement,’ says Boyden, but both he and Stacey speak positively about the Department for Education (DfE)'s Risk Protection Agreement (RPA), which has already covered a significant number of school tour cancellations.
The DfE advises against any over-night residential stays for school groups in the autumn term, and while neither Rayburn nor Halsbury are bound by that advice, they are double-checking with those groups who are keen to go ahead with trips between now and Christmas. ‘We don't want to be perceived,’ says Boyden, ‘to be facilitating something that goes against DfE advice.’ Nonetheless, Stacey tells me of a secondary school music group set to go to Tuscany in October, ‘They booked that tour before Covid happened and they're still keen to go as long as the pieces slot together, the flights are still there, and the venues are still possible. If it looks like there are going to be a few things that are going to be too restrictive, we'll go back and explore options and maybe postpone it until the spring time, but at the moment they're keen.’
To make that possible, Stacey goes on, ‘it's for us to make sure we've got all of the up-to-date information so that we know exactly how the hotels are implementing their cleanliness and what the actual Covid restrictions are at that time, because obviously as they're changing for us constantly, they'll be changing abroad as well.’
On money, he says, ‘no parent really wants to put themselves at financial risk, so it's really about working with our suppliers. The DfE and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) advice can differ, and the school may be told “we don't really want you to travel overseas” by the DfE, while the country in question is in fact open for travel. That might invalidate an insurance claim, so we're looking at being able to offer a “Halsbury promise”, working with our key suppliers to ensure that if travel isn't possible, groups can have a full refund even if the FCDO is saying “this destination is still open”. If we can work with our suppliers to ensure that we have these agreements in place, then schools can book with confidence.’
Viva España: a brass group performs in Spain (Image: Rayburn Tours)
Boyden says the same of Rayburn, adding ‘on the whole, a lot of suppliers have been very willing to help because we're all in it together, and these are people we've been working with for years and years.’
That is the spirit in which businesses, individuals and even governments across the world have been operating during this time. Long may it continue, particularly if it facilitates the experiences young people can have on an international choir or orchestra tour – experiences that will lead to lifelong memories, friendships and confidence, all part of the bedrock of an inspiring music education.
