Type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Travel Volunteer work Gap year |
Founded | September 2008 | in Gold Coast, Queensland
Founders | Jürgen Himmelmann, CEO Pierre Himmelmann, CFO |
Headquarters | 50 Cavill Avenue Surfers Paradise, Queensland , |
Area served | Australia Canada New Zealand United Kingdom United States |
Number of employees | 100+ [1] (2019) |
Parent | The Global Work & Travel Group Pty Ltd |
Website | www |
Global Work & Travel. is an Australian travel company. The company was founded in 2008, and provides working holiday, teaching abroad, volunteer, au pair, and student internship packages and helps travellers with travel insurance, flights, and travel visas. With three offices in Surfers Paradise, Queensland, Vancouver, and London, it operates primarily in five countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As of 2018, the company had organised gap-year trips for over 40,000 people. [2]
A joint investigation by CBC News and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation found several dozen complaints from customers of Global Work & Travel who could not find employment through the company's programs. The Queensland Department of Justice and Attorney-General's Office of Fair Trading (OFT) conducted a 13-month probe that resulted in a $20 thousand settlement to pay back 29 customers, while Queensland's Office of Industrial Relations (OIR) levied another fine and reached a separate agreement to pay back the remaining customers.
Global Work & Travel was founded in 2008 by father and son duo Pierre and Jürgen Himmelmann. [3] They and Jürgen's mother Caryl Himmelmann own the company. [4] Based in Surfers Paradise, Queensland, it has offices in three cities: Surfers Paradise, Queensland, Vancouver, and London. [5]
Global Work & Travel offers working holiday, au pair, internship, volunteer and teaching abroad packages for people between the ages of 18 and 35. [3] [4] [6] It helps travellers with flights, travel visas, and travel insurance. [2] It provides services primarily in five countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. [7] Trips can last up to 24 months, depending on arrival countries visa specifications. [5] [8] In 2015, it had 100 employees and served over 20,000 travellers, [9] by 2018 it had served over 40,000. [2]
In November 2014, [10] the company was investigated jointly by CBC News and Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which found several dozen accusations from consumers who travelled internationally and were unable to find employment. [11] The travellers described Global Work & Travel high-pressure sales techniques, misleading job pledges, and massive markups. [12] Global Work & Travel settled with OFT after a 13-month probe. [12] The company agreed to refund over $20,000 to 29 customers. [12]
In February 2015, the Federal Circuit Court of Australia fined Global Work & Travel and its owners $138,000 for not refunding a prior agreed upon sum to six workers they had misclassified as independent contractors. [13] Global Work & Travel also was investigated by the Queensland's Office of Industrial Relations (OIR). OIR levied a fine on the company in February 2016 for violations of the Private Employment Agents Act of 2005. The company settled with OIR in March 2016 to have all charges resolved after repayment of all fines. [14]
Qantas Airways Limited is the flag carrier of Australia and its largest airline by fleet size, international flights and international destinations. It is the third-oldest airline in the world, after KLM and Avianca, having been founded in November 1920; it began international passenger flights in May 1935. The Qantas name comes from "QANTAS", an acronym for its original name, Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, as it originally served Queensland and the Northern Territory, and it is nicknamed "The Flying Kangaroo". Qantas is a founding member of the Oneworld airline alliance.
The Gold Coast is a coastal city in the Australian state of Queensland, approximately 66 kilometres (41 mi) south-southeast of the centre of state capital Brisbane and immediately north of the border with New South Wales. The demonym for the Gold Coast is Gold Coaster. With an estimated population of 679,127, at June 2019, the Gold Coast is the sixth-largest city in Australia, making it the largest non-capital city, and Queensland's second-largest city.
Surfers Paradise is a coastal town and suburb in the City of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census, Surfers Paradise had a population of 23,689 people.
Spirit Airlines, Inc. is an American ultra-low-cost carrier headquartered in Miramar, Florida in the Miami metropolitan area. It is the eighth largest commercial airline in North America. Spirit operates scheduled flights throughout the United States and in the Caribbean and Latin America. The airline operates bases at Atlantic City, Chicago–O'Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, and Orlando.
Santos Ltd. is an Australian energy company, the country's second-largest independent oil and gas producer. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Santos was ranked as the 1583rd -largest public company in the world.
Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) is an Australian government financial intelligence agency set up to monitor financial transactions to identify money laundering, organised crime, tax evasion, welfare fraud and terrorism financing. AUSTRAC was established in 1989 under the Financial Transaction Reports Act 1988. It implements in Australia the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), which Australia joined in 1990.
Tripadvisor, Inc. is an American online travel company that operates a website and mobile app with user-generated content and a comparison shopping website. It also offers online hotel reservations and bookings for transportation, lodging, travel experiences, and restaurants. Its headquarters are in Needham, Massachusetts.
Tax-free shopping (TFS) is the buying of goods in a foreign country and obtaining a refund of the sales tax which has been collected by the retailer on those goods. The sales tax may be variously described as a sales tax, goods and services tax (GST), value added tax (VAT), or consumption tax.
Cash Converters International Limited is an Australian retail pawnbroking company which also provides payday loans. It has international franchise operations in many areas such as the US and Canada, the Middle East, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, and New Zealand.
Grant Thornton is the world's seventh-largest by revenue and sixth-largest by number of employees professional services network of independent accounting and consulting member firms which provide assurance, tax and advisory services to privately held businesses, public interest entities, and public sector entities. Grant Thornton International Ltd. is a not-for-profit, non-practising, international umbrella membership entity organised as a private company limited by guarantee. Grant Thornton International Ltd. is incorporated in London, England, and has no share capital.
Agoda.com is an online travel agency and metasearch engine for hotels, vacation rentals, flights, and airport transfer. It is owned by Agoda Company Pte. Ltd., headquartered in Singapore, and a subsidiary of Booking Holdings.
Booking.com is a Dutch online travel agency for lodging reservations and a subsidiary of Booking Holdings. It is headquartered in Amsterdam.
Cotton On Group is Australia's largest global retailer, known for its fashion clothing and stationery brands. It has over 1,500 stores in 18 countries and employs 22,000 workers globally.
Brittany Ferries is the trading name of the French shipping company, BAI Bretagne Angleterre Irlande S.A., that operates a fleet of ferries and cruiseferries between France and the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Spain, and between the United Kingdom and Spain.
Global Blue is a tourism shopping tax refund company headquartered in Nyon, Switzerland. The company is best known for tax-free shopping, a VAT/GST refund product and also operates in dynamic currency conversion, marketing services, point-of-sale technology, retail staff education, and customer intelligence. It is the industry leader for providing tax refunds, with Premier Tax Free as its closest competitor.
Surfers Paradise Meter Maids are bikini-clad women who operate in Surfers Paradise — a surfing, entertainment and tourism centre on the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia. Unlike other meter maids, who issue parking tickets to motorists when they overstay, Gold Coast meter maids put money into parking meters which might otherwise expire, preventing vehicle owners from incurring a fine. After the introduction of pay-and-display parking meters they took on the task of explaining to motorists how the machines work.
STA Travel was a Travel Supplier supplying travel products and service to the general public through their 200 retail travel agency stores located globally. It was owned by Diethelm Keller Holding (DKH), with headquarters in Zurich and London. It had almost 2,000 employees working in over 200 stores worldwide.
Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) is an Australian travel agency. It was founded in 1982, and is headquartered in Brisbane, Australia.
Lowcostholidays was a travel company and a consumer-facing brand of the lowcosttravelgroup, which was founded in 2004. It operated to destinations worldwide, with a focus on European city and beach breaks. Around 500 people worked for the brand, which was based in Palma de Mallorca, with additional offices located in London, and Krakow. The company collapsed and went into administration on 15 July 2016. The collapse of the company was blamed on low turnover in the aftermath of the Brexit vote.
NewLeaf Travel Company Inc., branded as NewLeaf, was a Canadian virtual airline, or ticket reseller, based at Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport in Manitoba. It sold tickets for flights operated by Flair Airlines.