THE family of an Oxford student killed while in Peru on her gap year have helped hundreds of youngsters with a website providing information to ‘gappers’ — but need more money to keep it running.

In 2007, following the death of their 19-year-old daughter Georgia in a bus crash, Ian and Pat French launched a website to provide independent information for people planning to travel.

Former Oxford High School pupil Georgia, of Davenant Road, North Oxford, was killed as she travelled with two school friends to the Inca site at Machu Picchu just weeks into the trip.

Since GapAid was set up, hundreds of people have visited the website including students planning their travel adventure, parents wanting to support their children and teachers wanting to provide information for students.

Mr and Mrs French see the site as a lasting memorial to their daughter.

GapAid co-ordinator Ally Crichton said: “We have created a one-stop shop as a starting place to give people the basics, as well as information in the form of links to other websites providing more specialised advice.

“Our biggest issue to date is that we are hugely limited by funding as we currently rely on individuals and private donations.

“The sheer size of the industry and the current poor practices and approach to planning, safety and support convince us that the problem is real, but how many tragedies do there have to be before somebody wants to help?”

Mohaeed Chauhdry, 25, from Stratford, used it to plan his first trip after deciding to take a career break.

He travelled to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, South Korea and Hong Kong between May and June.

He said: ”Gap Aid's website was my one-stop source of information for everything and anything I needed when it came to planning my trip.

“The layout of the site meant all the main questions anyone would need to know about travelling for the first time were answered, with more information provided through links if needed.

“I booked my travel insurance through the website as it was tailor-made for travellers.”

Helen Buckland, 23, from Oxford, said: “My first big trip abroad was a solo mission to Indonesia — I would have been so grateful for a website such as this to help me plan and prepare. I now have the travel bug and will definitely use GapAid when planning my next trip.”

news@oxfordmail.co.uk