Planning Early: Why and When!

As parents ourselves, we’re always trying to teach our kids to think ahead, plan well and avoid procrastinating. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves to do the very same things! The number one planning tip we can share as both parents and travel planners is to plan early. Here’s what you need to know:

WHY

Planning early doesn’t just feel great (who doesn’t love checking a box on the to-do list?). It makes every element of your tournament experience better:

  • More time to fundraise – Once your team is registered, it’s off to the races for your fundraising campaign. If you have plenty of time to organize and execute fundraisers, you’ll raise the funds you need well in advance of trip deadlines. You’ll have more time to market the trip to athletes and the families as well!
  • Better availability – If you’ve registered early, you’ll have the best selection when it comes to travel, accommodations and activities – when it comes to availability, “you snooze, you lose” is sad, but true.
  • Scheduling your season – When you have a trip on the calendar, that can impact your regularly scheduled season. Planning early gives your athletic director time to finalize the schedule.
  • Payments are easier to manage – Parents are busy people, paying for a lot of things – they like to spread out trip payments when they can. The longer they have to schedule those intermittent payments, the happier they’ll be.
  • Fans need to plan – Our events are awesome for spectators and most parents and fans won’t want to miss a minute. Traditionally, these “tag alongs” don’t fundraise, so they need time to plan financially to join the team.

WHEN

Our team looks at booking windows in three ways – early, on time and late. We consider early to be 13-18 months in advance of the event, while on time is 6-12 months before. Both options give us enough time to book incredible opportunities for your team and give coaches an ideal window to train with their athletes, market and fundraise for the trip and offer parents enough time to plan.

FUN FACT: When you book in the 13-18 month window, you earn a $1,000 discount on your main invoice! And don’t forget, you earn one complimentary trip for every 20 participants – and if they book early, you earn another $1,000.

While it’s not ideal, we’ve been known to pull off some travel miracles “at the buzzer” for teams with less than 6 months to plan. We understand that late registrations happen and do our best to accommodate those situations. With that said – planning early is definitely the winner here! Are you ready to take your team on the road? We’re here to walk you through the process and take all the travel details off your plate, so you can give 100% to your team. Let’s get started!