The decision, the team, and the commitment

Of course, once the decision is made to go on a Europe tour, the first thing to do before moving forward is to have a team ready to work and follow you to make it happen. If your group is not involved in every aspect of the preparations, you won’t be able to make them participate in all the upcoming activities. It’s important for every single member of the group (player, parents, and coaches) to realize that they all have some part to do and that it’s not possible to complete the project without their help. Once you are sure of their commitment, make sure that YOU are ready to make the moves since someone has to do it in the end.

The Company

A lot of people think they are smart enough to plan the tour by themselves and of course, it’s possible to do it. But the fact is there are so many unknown aspects and so many things to think about, that most of the time, the trip will end up a disappointing experience. People have to understand that there are just too many things to settle for a single person with no experience or contact on-site. The most difficult part being to plan the games or tournament with all the aspects surrounding it: transport, lodging, insurance, local guide, language barrier, quality, distances, sightseeing, support, etc… WHY US? Simply because every member of our Company is specialized and passionate about the same thing as you and also because we have a lot of experience in both of the designed field of competence (games, locations, Clubs and Europe) as we are located ourselves in Europe.

The budget, the destination, and the length

Your team needs to agree on the destinations, a length and of course a realistic budget. The most frequent major mistake from travel is planning to see too much! “Europe is small so we can get everywhere in no time.” While that is true, the cold hard fact is that you will have a painful trip if you decide to move around too much from location to location and unpacking/packing in hotels. As to your budget, take into mind that there is a Land Package from us and above that your flights.

Fundraising

Most of the time, teams will have to think about fundraising for the players which has been the case with some teams in the past. While not a favorite part of the preparation, it’s still a necessary one since nobody wants to cut on the quality of a once-in-a-lifetime tour. That is why you have to find original and fun ways to make everybody participate. The easiest way is sponsorship but you have to knock at a lot of doors to find substantial money. It’s more realistic to find traditional ways for fundraising. .

Final preparations

An important part of the final preparations is to schedule regular meetings with your Group to make sure they do not forget anything so that Unexpected things WILL not happen during your tour and it’s better to be fully prepared for anything that may pop on-site. Such as allergy notices, medical insurance, travel insurance, passport photocopies, contact numbers for all people & hotels, flight tickets copies, etc. Also everyone should have a detailed itinerary so that they have a guideline of the tour. It should be decided before the Tour who is responsible for each minor. Minors who are NOT traveling with their parents need to follow rules to avoid any problems at the customs or on-site. Visit the website of the foreign affairs [http://www.voyage.gc.ca/consular_home-en.asp] ) is very informative for all the details. Also everybody should have some local money on them for the 1st Country of enter. Currency rates can be found on www.oanda.com

On-site

You will have a Sports Tours Europe guide with you for your entire Tour so it should be pretty easy to go around without encountering too many problems. If some issues arise, the guide is there to take care of everything and arrange every aspect of the trip to accommodate the group. A typical day on tour usually is usually breakfast, sightseeing in the morning, free time, games in the afternoon or night, dinner and evening free. When moving to another location, it is also possible to have some sightseeing along the way or a game before arrival at the next location. We see to it that you do not spend too much time on the road. If possible, you should have someone in charge of taking pictures and videos of the tour since it would be appreciated and useful if someone loses his or her equipment and also for exchange of pictures etc. when you arrive back home.

After You Tour

Everyone will probably have a lot of memories to bring back home with them along with pictures etc. and it is a great idea to all get together some weeks after with all the group where you can exchange thoughts and pictures about the trip.