Career Area
TRAVEL & TOURISM
The Travel and Tourism sector includes jobs such as holiday representatives, holiday centre managers, tour managers, tourist information centre assistant and travel agents. It also covers museums and heritage attractions.All the jobs in this sector are people based and so employees need the ability to communicate well. Organisational and teamwork skills are also required, and good business skills. As there may be an opportunity to work abroad, modern foreign languages would be useful.
There is currently a lack of high level management skills in travel and tourism, with a shortage of women reaching senior levels.
Source:jobs4u
This area looks at just four different job areas in the Travel & Tourism sector, with three possible career routes for each:
Click above to go to the Diplomas
You can get your qualifications by taking vocational courses or studying while in employment as well as by the more traditional academic route. The important thing is to choose a route that suits you.
Remember these are career pathways, and you can get on or off the pathway at any point!
Mature students without formal qualifications are advised to talk to their local nextstep provider www.nextstep.org.uk One year Access to Higher Education courses give adults without formal qualifications the chance to study at degree level. Contact individual colleges and universities to discuss their entry requirements.
Additional sources of information
The Sector Skills Council for Travel & Tourism is People 1st www.people1st.co.uk
GoSkills is the Sector Skills Council for passenger transport www.goskills.org and has a training courses database
The Institute of Travel and Tourism www.itt.co.uk has careers information and offers an advice line for students and graduates
The Accredited Travel Professional scheme www.a-t-p.org.uk is currently being developed to encourage Continuous Professional Development.
Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVEs) in Travel and tourism in the South East are:
- Brockenhurst College www.brock.ac.uk in partnership with Abingdon and Witney College, Chichester College, City College Brighton and Hove and Oxford and Cherwell Valley College
- Canterbury College www.cant-col.ac.uk
- Guildford College www.guildford.ac.uk
What else should I be doing?
There’s a lot you can do to help your Travel and tourism career outside formal learning:
- find part time work/holiday jobs/work experience which involves customer service
- take part in Aimhigher activities, such as summer schools and taster days
- improve your teamwork and personal skills – especially communication, presentation and organisational skills
- develop your problem solving and thinking skills
- develop your IT skills
- learn a modern foreign language
- become a student member of the Institute of Travel and Tourism
- keep up to date with developments through sites such as www.wttc.org travel in the UK and overseas