Type of business Private Area served Worldwide | Founded 2000 (2000) Founder(s) Espen Odegard | |
 | ||
Headquarters Waltham, Massachusetts, MA, USA Key people Mike Cleary
(Executive Vice President) | ||
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StudentUniverse is the world’s leading travel booking site for students and youth. Through negotiations with a network of global partners, StudentUniverse offers discounted pricing and terms on flights, hotels and tours. Its Travel Services division handles client requests for groups and custom itineraries. Its service went live in 2000, and the company is based in Waltham, Massachusetts. It has proprietary verification technology that allows it to verify student status. In 2015 and 2016, WYSE named StudentUniverse as "Best Youth Travel Agent" in the Global Youth Travel Awards.
Contents
Studentuniverse airline awards 2016
Website
StudentUniverse.com offers flights, hotel and hostel bookings, travel insurance, and tours. According to the terms and conditions, users have to be students at a degree-granting college to redeem offers. The primary focus of the website is B2C (Business to Consumer), however it also offers group travel services for groups of 10 or more people. Users can search for deals without logging in, however must create an account prior to purchasing. The business and website is rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and 9.27/10 stars (based on 9,101 reviews) on ResellerRatings. StudentUniverse also has a mobile app, Flights, that allows students to book flights and hotels.
Business model
StudentUniverse focuses primarily on the student travel vertical, though some deals are available for anyone 18-26 and some do not require student verification. It sells exclusive airfare deals for verified members from its airline partners; such airfares are not guaranteed to be cheaper than the retail airfares (what is generally available in the market) but students can save up to 40% off off published fares. The company does not charge for membership. It makes money from commission, advertising sales and booking fees on some transactions.
By verifying their members' enrollment at an accredited, degree-granting college, the company is able to offer students discounted products and services. The company's value proposition is to offer student discounts, and flexibility, with an average discount over published rates, based on a sample survey, of 14%.
The company offers 24/7 customer service in English.
History
Partners
StudentUniverse has over 75 airline partners.
The company also works closely with ITA Software (Google) and utilizes their QPX technology. Kayak.com has integrated their negotiated student airfares.
Team
Key members of the StudentUniverse team include:
Demographics
StudentUniverse focuses primarily on the college student market in the United States. There are 4,495 colleges, universities, and junior colleges in the country and 17.5 million college students.
Gen Y (born 1977–1994) is now estimated to be the largest consumer group in US history. At 70 to 80 million, the generation accounts for 25% of the US population. Their annual spending power already exceeds $200B and that is expected to eclipse Boomers by 2017.