Our Company
Values, vision, and a deep history.
It takes good people working together to make your travel experience perfect.
Our Values
Relationships. We create enduring connections rooted in authenticity, collaboration, proactivity and mutual respect.
Trust. We build strong bonds by keeping our promises, persevering through challenges, and acting with transparency, consistency and integrity.
Service. We apply our knowledge, empathy and creativity to make the world a better place for our educators, our students & their families, our communities and each other.
Responsibility. We own our attitudes, we hold our work to the highest standards, and we bring our best selves to all situations.
Our Mission
We make the student group leader’s vision for travel a reality by developing meaningful relationships with our clients & partners, providing industry-leading service and attention for every group, and combining substantial buying power with the personalized touch of a family-owned company.
Our Vision
Our vision is to be the group travel company that brings dreams to life – with clients who look to us first, employees who can’t imagine a better place to collaborate, and partners who share our dream for a perfect travel experience.
Watch Our 40th Anniversary Video
Our History
In the fall of 1981, Bob Rogers set out to fill a need. The resources weren’t plentiful, but the vision was grand: to create a group travel company that understood the unique needs of student groups and made it easy for educators to take their students on amazing trips. Bob, a former band director with 10 years of teaching experience, knew the impact that travel could have on a student’s life. So he withdrew his retirement savings, converted his son’s percussion room into an office, and went to work.
From the beginning, relationships were key to Bob’s success – many of the company’s first clients were Bob’s friends and colleagues. In its first year of operation, Bob Rogers Travel took performance and education groups to the Walt Disney World® Resort and the World’s Fair in Knoxville, TN. Bob traveled with every group, calling home to collect messages and returning phone calls from pay phones when time permitted.
With a year of trips behind him and a desire to continue building meaningful relationships with his clients, Bob typed up a single page newsletter and began mailing it to his friends so they could keep up with their colleagues. Bob’s children, Tami and Todd, made their first contribution to their father’s company by sitting on the family room floor, folding newsletters and preparing them for mailing.
Today, Bob’s vision of exceptional service and attention to detail has been carried out on over 8,000 trips with over 650,000 travelers. Bob Rogers Travel has taken students to all 50 states and over 25 countries. Tami and Todd now serve as the leaders of the company. Throughout this growth, Bob’s original vision for a company that cared about people, relationships and worry-free travel experiences hasn’t changed.
Celebrating 40+ Years of Making Moments That Matter
Focus on Our Founder
Join us for a look back at the founding and early days of BRT with our founder, Bob Rogers.
Director Stories
Hear from retired Directors as they remember special moments from years of traveling with their student groups and Bob Rogers Travel.
The personal touches that BRT provides. Your company gets to know the people they work with. I have never felt like a "number" with BRT.
Leslie Schmidt
Columbia Central Junior High School
Class Trip, DC Tour
I appreciated the flexibility Bob Rogers showed us with the billing and various payments we had to make. We thought we were adding more and ended up not but you were great about giving us extra time to work out what we needed to on our end.
Loraine Wistrom
Plum Grove Junior High School
Band, Chicago Tour
BRT is always on top of all details. Even when something has slipped through the cracks, changed, or something unexpected comes up, BRT is flexible enough to make the changes needed to make everything right. We have always been so well taken care of and the personal attention is what makes your company special.
Dameon Place
Pella Community High School
Band, Orlando Tour
This was my 5th trip with Bob Rogers, and I appreciate the professionalism and also the willingness to work with me and my students to make each trip the very best it can be.
Trey Jacobs
Nashville School of the Arts
Choir, Atlanta & Tuscaloosa Tour
You make the process so easy - step-by-step of what needs to be done, guidance along the way, available (and quick) to respond to questions and making me feel like me and my students are your priority.
Beth Vaughn
Bowling Green High School
Choir, New York City Tour
The quality of service that you provided us with was second to none. The organization and communication were exceptional and we always felt we were in “the loop” on things both before and during the trip.
Bob Mecozzi
Amos Alonzo Stagg High School
Band, Orlando Tour
BRT hands down has been the absolute best travel company I have worked with in my 18 years in education. My interactions with BRT have always been so much more than just traveling from one destination to another...the focus has always been on people and providing them with experiences of a lifetime.
Barry Houser
University of Illinois
Band, Ireland Tour
From the scheduling, to planning, to overseeing, to leading, to customer service, everyone involved was courteous, prompt, and hospitable. Everyone did their jobs well and turned the trip experience into something better than we had anticipated.
David Dvorak
Lakewood Middle School
Band, Nashville Tour
Very Organized - even when problems develop. We've gone on enough trips with Bob Rogers to know how BRT operates - always first class, always prepared.
Joe Carl
Sumner High School
Band, Los Angeles Tour
The whole BRT team was extremely attentive, accommodating and reliable. Every detail was attended to and my stress level the entire trip was at an all-time low.
Joel Vanderheyden
Jefferson College
Band, New Orleans Tour