From Catholic News Service

Web site aims to make faith-based travel easier

By Nancy Frazier O'Brien - Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- With spending on faith-based travel estimated to exceed $1 billion annually, a new online service called Groople (for "groups of people") is making it easier to organize pilgrimages, retreats and parish gatherings for groups as small as five people.

The Web site, www.groople.com, also caters to those organizing other group travel, including trips for weddings or showers, bachelor or bachelorette parties, sports tournaments and family, military or class reunions.

Mike Stacy, CEO of the Colorado-based Groople, said group travel had been left out of the recent boom in online travel services because sites such as Travelocity.com and expedia.com weren't set up to permit bookings for more than four people at a time.

But that doesn't mean Americans are staying home. More people than ever are traveling in groups, especially for religious-related travel, Stacy said.

According to American Church Lists, 70,000 churches in the United States had groups participating in faith-based travel last year, a 40 percent jump since 2002, he said. An estimated 600,000 Americans went abroad for religious-related travel in 2004, according to the U.S. Office of Travel and Tourism.

Stacy, a former executive of CheapTickets.com and Travelocity.com, believes the rise in faith-based travel is related to the increase in church attendance and growing interest in all things spiritual after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"I don't think it's good enough for travelers to just go somewhere and hit the beach anymore," Stacy told Catholic News Service in a March 1 telephone interview. "People want more from their travel," such as an educational or religious element, he added.

Groople allows group travel organizers to book flights for five or more people, arrange for car rentals and choose from among some 60,000 hotel rooms around the world. It also permits each person in the group to pay for his or her own expenses, instead of requiring the organizer to pay all the costs upfront.

For those who can't go online or want to speak to a person, Groople also operates a call center, at (800) 4GROOPLE, and trains its 80 operators in planning retreats, pilgrimages and other religious group travel.

Although the strictly religious aspects of the travel are left to the group organizers, the Web site section on religious travel offers ideas for parish retreats or youth summer programs, such as icebreakers or backup plans when weather precludes outdoor activities.

Stacy said Groople plans to greatly expand the planning tools for religious travel on its Web site over the next few months.

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