The Educational Travel Consortium’s Annual Conference assembles an international group of top-level decision makers from both nonprofit institutions and for-profit companies who focus specifically on special-interest and lifelong-learning group travel. The following three distinct groups attend the conference:

1) Nonprofit Travel Program Managers and Planners

2) U.S. Tour Operators and Suppliers

3) Domestic and International Destination Representatives

This is the most content-laden conference in the travel industry.
Jim Sano, Vice President of Travel, Tourism, and Conservation, World Wildlife Fund

1) Nonprofit Travel Program Managers and Planners
Large and small travel programs are represented from alumni associations and continuing and international education departments; art, science, and natural history museums; cultural and preservation organizations; zoos, aquariums, and conservation groups; and from national and regional nonprofit organizations and affinity associations.

Approximately 100+ nonprofit travel planners from across the USA and Canada participate each year. In attendance are key decision makers such as executive directors and program managers, as well as program support staff.

Some of the participants are: Dartmouth College, Stanford Alumni Association, Arizona Alumni Association, Washington & Lee University, Philadelphia Zoo, California Alumni Association–Berkeley, Harvard Alumni Association, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Smithsonian Institution, The Nature Conservancy, National Trust for Historic Preservation, The Sierra Club, UCLA Alumni Travel, Alumni Association of the University of Michigan

Excellent source of tour selection and management of information and best single resource for educational travel networking.
Robert Fure (retired), Lifelong Learning, Washington & Lee University

2) Leading U.S. Tour Operators and Suppliers
In addition to forging connections between travel planners from similar institutions, ETC brings together  key special-interest group travel operators, destinations, and suppliers from all corners of the world. No other meeting assembles so many experts dedicated to serving this educational, alumni, and nonprofit travel market niche.110+ special-interest tour operators and 50+ specialty suppliers, from several international destinations, attend and exhibit. Companies and businesses represented include: Academic Arrangements Abroad, Distant Horizons, Odysseys Unlimited, Lindblad Expeditions, MIR, Alaska Wildland Tours, USI Travel Insurance Services, Alumni Holidays, and Gohagan & Co.

Best educational experience in the industry.
Marilyn Downing Staff, Founder and Past President, Asia Transpacific Journeys

3) Special Interest Domestic and International Destinations and DMCs
ETC has representatives from around the globe— Asia, Africa, Canada, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, the South Pacific and Australia, and the United States. State and foreign national government tourist offices, destination marketing organization specialists and city tourist bureaus participate, as well as in country receptive operators. A sampling of these attendees from past conferences include: China National Tourist Office, Japan National Tourism Organization, India Tourism, Korea Tourism Organization, Tourist Office of Spain, Tourism Malaysia, Travel Manitoba, Tourism Ireland, ProColombia, Visit Flanders.