Members are being encouraged to build relationships with their local primary schools as part of ABTA’s Schools Art Challenge. Over 120 primary schools nationwide have already signed up within the first week of the initiative but ABTA is encouraging Members to utilise the campaign to engage with their local communities.  

ABTA chief executive Mark Tanzer explained: “It’s wonderful to see so many schools sign up within such a short space of time and we’re encouraging our Members to build on this by maximising relationships in the community, or indeed take the opportunity to build their profile by approaching local schools.”

ABTA Members have been supplied with a leaflet to promote the initiative which invites school children aged 7-11 years to imagine their perfect holiday from the past, present and future by designing postcards. The challenge – which underlines ABTA’s long-standing involvement as the guardian of travel - will illustrate the evolution of travel through the ages.

Mark continued, “We’ve designed the Challenge to be a fun activity for primary school children, but at the same time we want to make sure that our future generations of travellers understand how they can contribute to a positive impact on destinations and people, whilst also engaging with their local travel agencies.”

ABTA Members looking for further information and inspiration can visit a specially designed online gallery of archive materials including photos, brochures and adverts supplied by tour operators and travel agent Members of ABTA across the industry. The gallery can be viewed at http://www.abta.com/60yearsontopoftheworld

The gallery is designed to inspire the UK’s future generations of travellers and help them become more aware of issues such as sustainability and environmental impact, and how they may affect the British travel industry in the future. The Challenge fits with the National Curriculum with a specially created teachers’ pack covering art, history, English, maths, geography and personal and social development.

By taking part in the challenge, schools, including teachers are in with a chance of winning one of 22 regional prizes including mini-breaks and days out kindly donated by ABTA’s members. Additionally there’s a national prize of one fully-inclusive executive 49-seat coach trip for 3 days to London or Paris for the winning school, courtesy of Acorn Travel Group.

Teachers, parents and pupils can find out more and download their free entry packs and classroom resources by visiting http://www.abta.com/60yearsontopoftheworld

Entries must be received by 10th June 2010.