About Us
Travel to Learn is a Division of NZ Travel Brokers. All of NZTB’s travel advisors are bonded members of TAANZ, The New Zealand Travel Agents Association, through NZ Travel Brokers. This ensures your financial security through a Bond and Trust accounting system, and requires that all money is paid directly into the NZ Travel Brokers trust account. Funds received for a trip can only be used to pay for that trip and full payment is not paid to suppliers until required, generally 90 days before departure.
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Travel to Learn has over 15 years’ experience in organising overseas educational trips for students from Europe and New Zealand. The founder and driving force of Travel 2 Learn over that time, Fiona Atkinson acts as a consultant, working with a small group of experienced travel advisors, well-versed in the needs of school group travel throughout New Zealand and overseas
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Travel to Learn brings experience in both travel and education together with the understanding of the importance of overseas study trips for learners both educationally and socially. Our trips are geared towards college-age students, to inspire them outside the classroom and encourage them to develop a deeper understanding of the subjects they are studying. We offer a number of standard tours and also specialise in organising tailor-made trips to suit the specific needs of the group. Outdoor learning plays a vital role in motivating and encouraging learners who may previously have not been engaged within the constraints of a classroom.
Founder & Consultant
Fiona Atkinson
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The founder of Travel to Learn back in 2009, Fiona has successfully operated with the added benefit of support of NZ Travel Brokers and has been one of NZ Travel Brokers leading operators during that time. She has now stepped back from the day-to-day running of the company and acts only as a consultant to the groups advisors (highlighted below) who have a wealth of experience in handling school groups.
Group Advisors
Amy Turuta
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Amy started her travel career with United Travel in 2002, where she worked for 8 years culminating in a role as Senior Groups Consultant before joining NZ Travel Brokers and now Travel 2 Learn as a Groups Specialist. Over the years Amy has arranged exciting itineraries for school choir groups to the USA and Europe, Cadet groups to Vietnam, China, and Canada, Geography groups to Japan, French classes to Tahiti, Kapa Haka groups to Dubai, a wedding in Italy, plus multiple sports teams all over the world and domestically. Amy was also fortunate enough to spend time living in the Cook Islands where she arranged multiple itineraries for sport, cultural and family groups travelling to Rarotonga and Aitutaki while working as the Sales & Marketing Manager at Crown Beach Resort which involved arranging weddings and corporate conferences and retreats. She has travelled with a number of the groups she has arranged, so has first-hand experience with what works and what doesn’t all contributing to a unified booking process from start to finish.
Rochelle Julian
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Rochelle’s travel career began in 1992 with Ski and Self Drive Wholesaler, Value Tours based in Sydney where her passion for group travel started. After 8 years she moved on to Gullivers Sport Travel in Sydney, a specialist group operator. During her 11 years at Gullivers Sport Travel she set up music and sports festivals, arranged school group tours and itineraries for destinations all over the world, sent 100’s of passengers on Rugby World Cup Tours, and looked after incoming passengers for British Lions tours. She also joined some of the adult groups as their tour leader. Rochelle returned to NZ in 2011 and was employed by House of Travel as a leisure consultant for a short time before joining NZ Travel Brokers in the Support Team as a Groups Consultant in 2012. She was a member of the support team until 2020 and after a short COVID-enforced break has re-joined as part of the Travel to Learn broker team. She has a wealth of experience in school group travel including sporting, language, cultural, commerce, arts, and history tours through to specialist groups such as adult art tours and volunteer programs.
Sam Hedge
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Sam began her extensive travel career in the UK 1992 working for Bob Mortimore Travel for 10 years where she was part of the Malaysia Experience division creating tours and itineraries for groups and individuals to Malaysia. She then progressed to Branch Manager where she was Head of Corporate travel and sent distillery companies to South America and Europe to sell their products. In 2002 she joined Capital Travel in Wellington where she was a Senior Consultant arranging travel itineraries for Labour and National MP’s and sent UN speakers to Europe to participate in overseas events.
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In 2010 she joined NZ Travel Brokers and during her time with NZTB, and now Travel to Learn, she has organised a number of school groups, including amongst others, a Commerce tour to USA, a French Tour to New Caledonia, an Australian Choir group touring New Zealand’s churches. Sam also arranges School International Departments Marketing trips throughout Europe & Asia and manages the travel arrangements for NZ Football Clubs overseas and NZ tournaments. She has sent several Baseball and Softball teams to the USA and Japan to participate in local tournaments and is also involved with a professional baseball team here in New Zealand where she arranges all their group travel through NZ, Australia, USA, and Japan along with facilitating the import of players from overseas.
Management
Andrew Bowman
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Earlier in 2018 Andrew Bowman joined NZ Travel Brokers as an independent director. Based in Auckland, Andrew is a director of BFT Management, his own consulting business that provides governance, advisory, management, mentoring and support services to the travel industry. He sits on the TAANZ Board and is the immediate past president of that industry organisation. He has recently been elected as the inaugural Chair of School Travel Collective. He has worked in the travel industry for 39 years, with experience in all aspects including retail, group, wholesale, brokers and corporate travel management.