New Traveller

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Abstract

March 16th 2014 a foreign student arrives at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris to continue his studies. Unfortunately, he knows nobody in France, so he is obliged to find his way just with the information he had before his departure. Being in a state of stress, tiredness, almost lost in the middle of nowhere, and coupled with the fact that he has many heavy travelling bags, his passport drops without him realizing it. He finally manages and leaves the airport 6 hours later. This is just one in a million of cases that happen like this every year to millions of students who are obliged to study in a new town or country. In a recent survey we conducted, with close to 150 participants, nearly 40% of international students indicated that they are not helped when they arrived their receiving town or country.

The goal of our project, New-Traveller is to facilitate the reception, the installation and the integration of any student moving from one town/country to another. With this in mind, our services via our online platform will serve as a bridge between travelling students and our student volunteers. Based on our research, no such platform exist as of now, some universities provide reception services while others do not. As innovative solution, we are hoping to: Improve the experience of student travellers, facilitate their social integration and adaptation. As such, to meet up with our value proposition and to be more competitive in the market, we rely on elements such as:

 Use of an online platform composed of a website and a mobile application to ease access to the services;

 Free registration;

 Some volunteers are considered an integral part of the company;

 Opportunities for financial gains (for our volunteers) via our banking partners, insurance etc.

Our target audience are international students, new high school graduates, internes and alternating students who move each year from one town/country to another. In addition, a majority will appreciate the introduction of such a service: approximately 80% based on our recent survey conducted across Facebook and email invitations with the collaboration of the University of Le Mans, France.

Our business has a very high replicative index in all countries of the world, with 170 million students in universities according to OECD .

New Traveller has 2 main sustainable revenue streams namely:

 A simple formula that helps us get commissions from each exchange of contacts between a volunteer and a student traveller: Commission =5+0.04Payment in Euros.

 Publicity: Having in mind the fact that Google (according to Personal Finance Hub) and Facebook (according to Market Realist) have more than 80% of their revenues from advertising, we project that New Traveller is going to move progressively from 0% revenue from advertising in 2015 to 65% by 2019, thanks to a student social forum that is going to accompany it.

In addition to that, we have other revenue streams like financing from partners, third parties, etc.

For our entry into the market, we divide our strategies into several fronts, namely:

 ERASMUS through them, we can easily get to students on mobility in Europe;

 University they can inform their students concerning the existence of our services;

 Consulate offices overseas we can leave our flyers for students who have been admitted to study in Europe;

 The Internet will allow us to promote our service via search engines and social networks.

The impact of New-Traveller are multiple and immeasurable, we list a few below:

 Social impact: breaking cultural barriers and promoting cultural acceptance;

 Academic impact: improving the performance of new students;

 Impact on its volunteers: a source of additional funding and cultural enrichment;

 Impact on University partners: better experience of their new students will lead to better reputation.

 Impact on other partners: improvement of their communication and advertising strategy.

The team working on this project New-Traveller consists of men and women, a multidisciplinary and multinational (more than four nationalities) team currently working in groups of 2 to 3 on well-defined sections and reoriented during evaluation/assessment meetings.

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