Students 'Discover to Escape' at Orpington and Greenwich travel shows

: Created: 04 April 2019

A sea of multi-coloured flags, photographs, promotional literature and cultural artefacts were on display, accompanied by the beat of traditional and modern music from around the world.

The students were tasked with researching, designing and decorating their stalls and producing high quality publicity materials. These included information on flights, getting around by public transport, popular tourist attractions, excursions, local cafes, restaurants and shopping centres, interesting facts and local history.

Activities included ‘flag-pong’ the wearing of national costumes, a culture quiz, ‘what’s in the box’ ‘express-n-guess’, selfie boards and lots more. There was also a tombola for prizes donated by local businesses and sponsors of the event. The funds raised from the activities will be donated to the Unicef charity.

Level 2 student, Craig, was amongst the many who worked so hard to make the Orpington event a roaring success. He said: "I would like to work on a cruise ship when I have completed my course. The things we do here enable us to learn everything there is to know about working in the sector - from theory to practical. For this project, we were tasked with making sure we spoke to visitors and act as ambassadors for the countries and cities we promoted. The feedback we have received so far suggests the vast majority of visitors were very impressed with their experience.”

Sona, from the level 3 group at Greenwich was responsibile for overseeing a number of activities. Breathing a sigh of relief after the event, she remarked: "We’ve put in an extraordinary amount of work over the past few months to prepare for this and today was the ‘moment of truth’. We have had to put our heads together and work as a team. The purpose of the event was to create awareness of different cities and resorts around the world, including some lesser known ‘off-the-beaten-track’ destinations. All in all, I think both shows have been a brilliant success.”

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