“GT” Insight Bites: Want a career in tourism? Important things you should know

In 2022, what is the most import­ant thing that a young per­son should under­stand before embark­ing upon a career in tourism?

For this “GT” Insight Bites, your cor­res­pond­ent put the ques­tion above to a range of travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers — “GT” Part­ners, guest authors, and their invit­ees — and invited writ­ten responses of up to 300 words. 

My thanks to all 17 respondents. 

Their answers appear in the order in which I received them.

Click/touch a name to go to their answer:

• Saverio Francesco Ber­to­lu­cci — Know your mis­sion, embrace your vision
• Wolfgang Georg Arlt — Expect volat­il­ity, uncer­tainty, com­plex­ity, ambiguity
• Jada Lind­blom — ‘Work hard, play hard’ for now … but later?
• K Michael Hay­wood — What I have learned that I did­n’t know then
• Jona­thon Day — Sus­tain­ab­il­ity is foundational
• Richard A Shep­ard — Under­stand your motiv­a­tion, stick to a plan
• Jim Butcher — ‘Humani nihil a me alienum puto’
• Kar­en Sim­monds — Tour­ism is a ‘people industry’
• Soph­ie Hart­man — Flex­ib­il­ity, adapt­ab­il­ity is essential
• Enrique Blanco — Lifelong learn­ing, e‑business, and digit­al trends
• Ivana Dam­njan­ović — ‘Be aware of change, ride its wave, and be its agent’
• Maria Gol­ubovskaya — ‘Oppor­tun­it­ies!’
• Melanie Kay Smith — Be humble. Be patient.
• Willem Niemeijer — Tour­is­m’s ‘sur­viv­al lies in sustainability’
• Kev­in Phun — ‘Be both a gen­er­al­ist and a specialist’
• Angelo Sciacca — ‘Fully embrace the concept of resilience’
• Edwin Magio — ‘Edu­ca­tion is not enough’
• What do you think?

Pre­vi­ous “GT” Insight Bites:

• Diverse per­spect­ives on travel & tour­ism and a fairer world
• Diverse per­spect­ives on eco­nom­ic degrowth and tourism
• Diverse per­spect­ives on vis­it­or dispersion

Know your mission, embrace your vision

Saverio Francesco Bertolucci, Administrative Assistant, Alcambarcelona, Spain

As I have just turned 24 years old, this top­ic is very import­ant to me. 

I think a young indi­vidu­al needs to ana­lyse and under­stand what he or she wants to become in the future. Hav­ing a vis­ion and a mis­sion can be real­ised by know­ing one’s inner self.

By embra­cing one’s vis­ion one can adapt to under­take the prop­er stud­ies and apply for the appro­pri­ate jobs, which will increase the chances of gradu­ally achiev­ing the pos­i­tion of one’s dreams. 

One must also have the flex­ib­il­ity and will­ing­ness to learn on the first jobs under­taken in the segment. 

Moreover, speak­ing inter­na­tion­al lan­guages and, most of all, mak­ing acquaint­ances in the busi­ness play a huge role. 

Net­work­ing is very import­ant in any­one’s career as it expands know­ledge in the field and allows the indi­vidu­al to even­tu­ally catch life-chan­ging job opportunities. 

Noth­ing can be taken for gran­ted, but I believe that I am on a good path towards a bright future.

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Expect volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity

Wolfgang Georg Arlt, CEO, COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute & Director, Meaningful Tourism Center, Germany

Unless the world ends in a third World War, the single most import­ant factor dur­ing the career of a young per­son enter­ing the trade (and any oth­er) will be cli­mate change. 

Accord­ing to the Inter­gov­ern­ment­al Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC) and the World Met­eor­o­lo­gic­al Organ­isa­tion, over the next four dec­ades there will be more heat­waves, floods, droughts, and oth­er extreme weath­er events, as well as large fires and rising sea levels. 

These devel­op­ments can­not be stopped any­more. All — neces­sary — activ­it­ies to mit­ig­ate cli­mate change will only start to have any pos­it­ive effect after 2060. 

For tour­ism the con­sequences will be that many nat­ur­al attrac­tions, forests, nation­al parks, gla­ciers etc. will dis­ap­pear; many tra­di­tion­al beach hol­i­day areas will become too hot in sum­mer to func­tion; and low-lying islands and sea­side cit­ies will be at risk of storm surge. 

Some products, like ski­ing hol­i­days or river cruises, will disappear. 

Glob­al eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment will not neces­sar­ily slow down, as the chan­ging situ­ation will cre­ate the need for many new inven­tions, includ­ing fossil-free land, water, and air trans­port­a­tion, as well as a change in the way urb­an areas are organised. 

Tour­ism will not dis­ap­pear. How­ever, con­cen­tra­tions of wealth and poten­tial cus­tom­ers for inter­na­tion­al tour­ism will partly shift to new coun­tries. And it will be rad­ic­ally dif­fer­ent from today’s leis­ure- and relax­a­tion-ori­ent­ated tourism. 

There will be more mean­ing­ful and exper­i­ence-ori­ent­ated activ­it­ies, many of which will be indoors or vir­tu­al. MICE travel (meet­ings, incent­ives, con­fer­ences, and exhib­i­tions) will con­tin­ue to exist but will no longer grow.

There will bet­ter career oppor­tun­it­ies in the tour­ism industry than in many oth­ers in a future that will be increas­ingly dom­in­ated by VUCA (volat­il­ity, uncer­tainty, com­plex­ity, and ambiguity).

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‘Work hard, play hard’ for now … but later?

Jada Lindblom, Field Specialist, Community & Economic Development, University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, USA

Travel & tour­ism jobs are known to embrace the men­tal­ity of ‘work hard, play hard’. 

This is a big draw for many young people, who want to vis­it inter­est­ing places, try new activ­it­ies, and get to know people from around the world. 

Entry-level travel & tour­ism jobs can come with huge perks in terms of fun and exploration. 

After the work and travel restric­tions of the past few years, these are perks that many of us have been craving. 

How­ever, it’s import­ant to keep in mind that the life­style that serves you now may not serve you later. Your interests, respons­ib­il­it­ies, and levels of energy change over time. 

It’s a good idea to think about what draws you to the field of travel & tour­ism now, and how those same influ­ences may (or may not) mani­fest for you in five, 10, or 20 years. 

Will you be cre­at­ing space for your­self to grow, change, and/or adapt? 

Or will you be set­ting your­self up to get stuck in roles or routines that may not feel so reward­ing down the road? 

When I was in my early twen­ties, I loved work­ing three part-time tour­ism and hos­pit­al­ity jobs; some­times all in the same day. I had the energy for it, and it didn’t mat­ter if I got home at 1 am and only got five hours of sleep before my next shift. 

Today, that sched­ule wouldn’t be pos­sible for me. 

Now, as a tour­ism pro­ject spe­cial­ist and research­er, I am very grate­ful for my past industry exper­i­ence, as it allows me a deep­er under­stand­ing of the field. 

I wouldn’t change a thing, but I’m glad I paid early atten­tion to identi­fy­ing mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions between past and future oppor­tun­it­ies, help­ing my career move along with my own needs and interests.

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What I have learned that I didn’t know then

K Michael Haywood, Professor Emeritus, University of Guelph, Canada

Hav­ing grown up in the Bahamas I nev­er con­tem­plated a career that didn’t encom­pass feel­ings of joy and delight. To mingle, have fun, and travel was my motivation. 

So I set my sights on becom­ing a hotel man­ager, desirous to travel the world. I enrolled in the only hotel and res­taur­ant man­age­ment pro­gram avail­able in Canada at the time. 

What have I learned that I didn’t know then? 

1. Your career will centre on serving others

Regard­less of your pos­i­tion or level of respons­ib­il­ity, your sense of hos­pit­al­ity will have to be in abund­ance, not just for vis­it­ors, but for all involved. To that end, seek out the wis­dom of lead­ers whose suc­cess is due to cre­at­ing envi­able social archi­tec­tures.

2. Tourism’s job vari­ety is immense and global

It isn’t neces­sary to pre-determ­ine which sec­tor of the industry you might want to spe­cial­ise in, nor if your interests lie in oper­a­tions, mar­ket­ing, HR, fin­ance, IT … the list goes on. Know that your interests will change as you pro­gress in an industry that is 24/7.

Con­sider work­ing in a for­eign coun­try. Be and remain curi­ous, par­tic­u­larly about oth­er cul­tures and their issues of concern. 

3. Keep learn­ing and striving

Study a vari­ety of dis­cip­lines: psy­cho­logy, soci­ology, lan­guages, the sci­ences, and arts. 

While study­ing, def­in­itely find part-time employ­ment to determ­ine what ser­vice for oth­ers is all about; the joys and the headaches. 

Don’t be a slack­er. Do your best. Employ­ers look for people who reveal a high degree of com­mit­ment and interest; people who are depend­able and personable. 

4. Con­sider travel & tourism’s impacts on the envir­on­ment and communities

Con­tinu­ously seek out ways to mit­ig­ate the neg­at­ive and accen­tu­ate the positive.

Have the time of your life and know that the oppor­tun­it­ies are fas­cin­at­ing and endless.

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Sustainability is foundational

Jonathon Day, Associate Professor | Graduate Program Director, White Lodging — J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management

It is crit­ic­al for any­one join­ing tour­ism and hos­pit­al­ity to recog­nise that sus­tain­ab­il­ity prac­tices are found­a­tion­al skills on which all entre­pren­eur­i­al, mar­ket­ing, product devel­op­ment, and fin­an­cial actions must be built. 

It has nev­er been more import­ant for every­one in tour­ism to think about how to improve our com­mon assets — envir­on­ment, her­it­age, and cul­ture — not just exploit them for short-term gain. 

Finally, know that the spir­it of hos­pit­al­ity — incor­por­at­ing respect and gen­er­os­ity — is needed more than ever and that the people who fol­low a career path in tour­ism are part of a noble profession.

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Understand your motivation, stick to a plan

Richard A Shepard, Trustee & CEO, Sustainable Rural Development International, UK

Con­sid­er­ing a career in tourism? 

Just rais­ing the ques­tion itself raises mul­tiple con­sid­er­a­tions, not the least of which is motivation. 

Why are you inter­ested in a tour­ism sec­tor career? Is it the oppor­tun­ity to travel? Is it to enter a hos­pit­al­ity career – like hotel management? 

The ques­tions can mul­tiply depend­ing on the goal. 

Are you good at com­mu­nic­at­ing? Can you be patient? What about hand­ling pressure? 

These same con­sid­er­a­tions apply across the board; for any career. 

Do you want to be a law­yer? Really? Why? 

So, what is the most import­ant thing to understand? 

Your motiv­a­tion and in what part of the sector. 

At the same time, select­ing the sec­tor requires under­stand­ing cap­ab­il­it­ies and what training/education you need to acquire.

Make a plan and stick to it.

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‘Humani nihil a me alienum puto’

Jim Butcher, Reader, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK

It is import­ant to under­stand the sen­ti­ment of Roman play­wright Ter­ence “Humani nihil a me alienum puto” or “I con­sider noth­ing that is human ali­en to me”. 

Ter­ence was a slave who ended up a play­wright, and espoused an inspir­ing human­ism rep­res­en­ted in this quote c. 170 BC.

Those inter­ested in travel & tour­ism are inter­ested in people and cul­tures. Work­ing in the industry, in dif­fer­ent ways, you act as a cul­ture broker. 

Oth­er cul­tures may be for­eign in one sense, but in anoth­er sense they are, as Terence’s quote reminds us, a part of who we are too; part of a glob­al con­ver­sa­tion over time and space through which our whole spe­cies evolves its cul­ture and ideas.

If you see the world’s cul­tures and ideas — good and bad — as part of a com­mon human her­it­age, then work­ing in travel & tour­ism is exciting. 

Air­lines are not just for trans­port, but for bring­ing people togeth­er for busi­ness and pleas­ure. Hotels are not just for accom­mod­a­tion, but for facil­it­at­ing new rela­tion­ships and net­works. Bars and res­taur­ants enable a con­vivi­al life and facil­it­ate cel­eb­ra­tions with new friends and loves. 

Tak­ing people to warm­er climes to feel the sun on their backs and to swim in the sea, and then to drink and dance in the even­ing, is life-affirm­ing. Vis­it­ing museums and his­tor­ic sites is to lit­er­ally delve into the archives of our shared human history.

So if, in your career or edu­ca­tion, you encounter a fash­ion­able cyn­icism, a mil­len­ari­an fear of impend­ing doom, or you are advised to ‘stay in your lane’, remem­ber that people in oth­er places — yes, even tour­ists — are mostly wonderful. 

None of them should be ali­en to you nor to the finest instincts of your customers. 

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Tourism is a ‘people industry’

Karen Simmonds, Founder, Travel Matters & Make Travel Matter, UK

Tour­ism is like a deeply inter­con­nec­ted eco­sys­tem that includes so many people. The industry is respons­ible for approx­im­ately 10% of glob­al employment. 

Tour­ism relies on leis­ure as well as busi­ness trav­el­lers i.e. people mov­ing around the globe for one reas­on or another. 

Thus tour­is­m’s sup­ply chains are all related: From the indi­vidu­als on the front line help­ing to sell hol­i­days, travel, and exper­i­ences; trans­port work­ers in air­line, train, ferry, and car hire com­pan­ies; accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders and hoteliers; to those in hos­pit­al­ity, includ­ing chefs, clean­ing staff … the list goes on. 

Any indi­vidu­al keen to grow in such a career must be mind­ful that they are enter­ing a ‘people industry’: Empathy, aware­ness for oth­ers, geo­graph­ic­al know­ledge, and a great­er under­stand­ing of cit­izen­ship, are all found­a­tion­al skills that an indi­vidu­al can learn and grow into. 

I would encour­age any indi­vidu­al to research the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goals in tour­ism and ensure that they under­stand them. I would also encour­age know­ledge of and innov­a­tion in all the digit­al tech­no­lo­gies that tour­ism uses and offers. 

There is a great deal of oppor­tun­ity with­in the tour­ism industry to help with inclus­iv­ity, loc­al com­munity empower­ment, and effi­cient resource management. 

Make tour­ism mat­ter. Make travel mat­ter in ways that bene­fit not just your­self but those around you. 

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Flexibility, adaptability is essential

Sophie Hartman, Special Advisor – Training, Destination Mekong

Flex­ib­il­ity is essen­tial to suc­ceed in the tour­ism and hos­pit­al­ity sec­tor, even more dur­ing in the COVID-19 recov­ery process.

As tour­ism work­ers inter­act with guests from a vari­ety of back­grounds and nation­al­it­ies, each with their own quer­ies and/or prob­lems, no day is the same in this dynam­ic industry. 

Unex­pec­ted and last-minute events hap­pen fre­quently and staff must adjust swiftly to ensure the best cus­tom­er experience. 

As high­lighted in Des­tin­a­tion Mekong’s report on Human Cap­it­al in COVID-19 Recov­ery, tour­ism busi­nesses must deliv­er the same levels of ser­vice with less human resources. 

Con­sequently, staff are expec­ted to work in mul­tiple roles across depart­ments. Cross-skilling is on the rise, prompt­ing com­pan­ies to re-eval­u­ate the struc­ture of their organ­isa­tions in order to reduce depart­ment­al boundaries. 

For example, stew­ard staff may also have set tables at a res­taur­ant as they have a duty to ensure the look and clean­li­ness of the tableware. 

In light of this, future gradu­ates should devel­op a strong set of soft skills and the abil­ity to learn quickly. 

As a mat­ter of fact, staff’s abil­ity to adapt is con­nec­ted to their capa­city to mul­ti­task, their resi­li­ence, and their can-do attitude. 

These key soft skills are highly sought in any work­place and are game-chan­ging career advance­ment elements. 

Motiv­ated young pro­fes­sion­als should seize the oppor­tun­it­ies brought by the chal­len­ging times and ongo­ing changes in the industry. 

Keep­ing an open mind may lead to suc­cess­ful career and learn­ing outcomes.

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Lifelong learning, e‑business, and digital trends

Enrique Blanco, Project & Communications Manager, École d’Hôtellerie et de Tourisme Paul Dubrule, Cambodia

The industry is changing. 

Digit­al skills, crit­ic­al in address­ing emer­ging needs, are one of the key drivers of the labour market’s transformation. 

As humans become more depend­ent on tech­no­logy, busi­nesses are forced to adapt and offer a more seam­less digit­al exper­i­ence to their customers.

Rap­id changes and tech­no­lo­gic­al dis­rup­tion have pushed travel & tour­ism busi­nesses to devel­op their own intern­al digit­al sys­tems or engage with new tech play­ers spe­cial­ised in digit­ising the industry. 

As a res­ult, the work­force is empowered with pre­cious data to make bet­ter decisions, stream­line oper­a­tions, and offer a more per­son­al­ised exper­i­ence to boost cus­tom­er sat­is­fac­tion and loyalty.

Before jump­ing into a career in the travel & tour­ism industry, young people should under­stand the grow­ing import­ance of the following:

• Lifelong learn­ing mind­set: build­ing capa­city to flex­ibly react and adapt to change through con­tinu­ous self-improve­ment and train­ing related to future digit­al trends and their applications.
• E‑business: demon­strat­ing an abil­ity to oper­ate online mar­ket­ing, dis­tri­bu­tion chan­nels and auto­ma­tion practices.
• Digit­al trends: under­stand­ing the pur­pose and func­tion of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, robot­ics, and vir­tu­al and aug­men­ted real­it­ies. For instance, allow­ing a vir­tu­al assist­ant to deal with daily repet­it­ive tasks provides an oppor­tun­ity for tal­ents to invest their time in oth­er stra­tegic areas, such as build­ing rap­port with customers.

Edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions, both high­er edu­ca­tion and voca­tion­al edu­ca­tion & train­ing, are already offer­ing com­pon­ents reflect­ing the industry’s digit­al acceleration. 

For example, EHL Hos­pit­al­ity Busi­ness School con­duc­ted a VR gami­fied house­keep­ing train­ing exper­i­ence with their bach­el­or students. 

In devel­op­ing coun­tries like Cam­bod­ia, blen­ded learn­ing has become a strategy for many voca­tion­al insti­tu­tions to effect­ively integ­rate tech­no­logy in their cur­riculum and enhance edu­ca­tion and train­ing quality.

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‘Be aware of change, ride its wave, and be its agent’

Ivana Damnjanović, Vice-dean for International Cooperation, Faculty of Health and Business Studies, Singidunum University, Serbia

It is increas­ingly appar­ent that it’s a new world, chan­ging con­stantly and unex­pec­tedly. Young people are, prob­ably, the most prom­in­ent factor in this change. 

Travel & tour­ism has changed and will con­tin­ue to. 

If I must decide on the most import­ant thing a young per­son should under­stand before embark­ing upon a career now, it is: 

Be aware of change, ride its wave, and be its agent. 

Among the mul­ti­tude of things to be per­cept­ive of are:

• The travel & tour­ism industry is volat­ile but it has also proven resi­li­ent. Be ready and will­ing to change jobs or even change career paths.
• Travel depends on people to cre­ate exper­i­ences. Expect a diversity of career oppor­tun­it­ies, and some lever­age to nego­ti­ate work­ing con­di­tions, fin­an­cial aspects, bene­fits, etc.
• Travel & tour­ism is not an isol­ated industry. It is integ­rated into places that are primar­ily a home to people and the liv­ing world in gen­er­al. As a part of a com­plex sys­tem of life, to exist and thrive tour­ism needs to be viewed both hol­ist­ic­ally and loc­ally. It needs to be approached respons­ibly, sus­tain­ably, and regeneratively.
• Emer­ging and devel­op­ing trends sup­port that need. So be on the incess­ant watch-out. Design authen­t­ic, real-deal, nature and com­munity-based, edu­ca­tion­al and enlight­en­ing, immers­ive, mean­ing­ful and trans­form­a­tion­al, per­son­al, rela­tion­ship-build­ing, story co-cre­ation­al experiences.
• Who you are mat­ters; your per­son­al­ity, know­ledge, his­tory. Your story. Be ready to show how resource­ful, for­ward-think­ing, innov­at­ive, cre­at­ive, entre­pren­eur­i­al, know­ledge­able, pas­sion­ate, intu­it­ive, attent­ive, under­stand­ing, tol­er­ant, com­pas­sion­ate, and appre­ci­at­ive you can be.
• Under­stand the value chain and its inter­re­la­tion­ships. Everybody’s role is crucial.
• Imper­at­ive: Advance daily. Find schools, pro­grams, and indi­vidu­als that reflect all these qual­it­ies, and are ready to share with you and help you grow pro­fes­sion­ally and per­son­ally. Team up with like-minded indi­vidu­als and organisations.

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‘Opportunities!’

Maria Golubovskaya, Casual Researcher, The University of Queensland, Australia

The answer, unequi­voc­ally, is ‘Oppor­tun­it­ies’! 

First, the industry needs you! Des­pite the dev­ast­at­ing impact of COVID-19 on tour­ism busi­nesses, today’s most press­ing issue is an unpre­ced­en­ted short­age of avail­able labour and people with the right skills. 

In oth­er words, in 2022 there are ample oppor­tun­it­ies for those who wish to work in the industry to find many job path­ways, have improved bar­gain­ing power, and amp­li­fied options for climb­ing the ladder.

Second, there is a golden oppor­tun­ity for young people to help redefine what we under­stand as a ‘career’ in tour­ism. Think­ing of a ‘career’ in uni­lat­er­al and lin­ear terms might be delim­it­ing, unreal­ist­ic, and archaic. 

Research sug­gests that a young per­son today is expec­ted to have 17 jobs across five careers in their life­time.

Thus, young people should aspire to build a ‘port­fo­lio’ of work or jobs that ensures diverse, rel­ev­ant, and trans­fer­able skills across mul­tiple roles and industries. 

Tour­ism offers a wide selec­tion of pos­sible roles, pos­i­tions, and jobs available. 

Third, tour­ism is made of all types of organ­isa­tions: large, medi­um, and small; loc­al, nation­al, and glob­al; sea­son­al or year-round; privately owned and public. 

Each type offers dif­fer­ent employ­ment options (casual/contractual, part-time, full-time) and a wide range of spe­cial­ist roles (e.g. mar­ket­ing, HR, IT etc.) as well as cus­tom­er-facing roles, with lat­er­al and ver­tic­al growth pathways. 

There are infin­ite domains of ser­vices and products with many spe­cial­isa­tions (e.g. tour­ing, cruises, hotels, cafes, events etc.). 

There are oppor­tun­it­ies to learn, have fun, grow and explore … all have one thing in com­mon: the import­ance of the cus­tom­er exper­i­ence at the core. 

Wheth­er you deal with intern­al or extern­al cus­tom­ers, a true cus­tom­er-ori­ented mind­set is what will dis­tin­guish you and what the industry needs more than ever!

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Be humble. Be patient.

Melanie Kay Smith, Associate Professor / Programme Leader, Budapest Metropolitan University, Hungary

One of the major sur­prises for stu­dents embark­ing on a career in tour­ism or hos­pit­al­ity is the gap between their edu­ca­tion and the real­ity of the industry. 

In some cases, stu­dents ini­tially feel over­qual­i­fied for the pos­i­tions that they are apply­ing for. 

It is not uncom­mon to ques­tion: Why am I not being giv­en mana­geri­al pos­i­tions imme­di­ately? This is espe­cially true after com­plet­ing a Master’s degree. 

How­ever, these are indus­tries where it is com­mon to have to ‘work your way up’ through sev­er­al areas of oper­a­tion, learn­ing new skills as you go. Qual­i­fied stu­dents usu­ally learn and pro­gress quickly, but they have to be humble at first! 

In the worst-case scen­ario, gradu­ates may not even be offered pos­i­tions in the first place because they are per­ceived as being over­qual­i­fied. It is import­ant to remem­ber how much of their know­ledge is trans­fer­able to oth­er sec­tors and professions. 

The second sur­prise might be that in edu­ca­tion we often work with good prac­tice or ideal scen­ari­os (e.g. regard­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity or des­tin­a­tion management). 

Stu­dents may enter the work­place brim­ming with new ideas and ini­ti­at­ives only to find them rejec­ted by col­leagues or thwarted by cir­cum­stances bey­ond their control. 

This can be dis­ap­point­ing but it does not mean that their ideas have no value, only that they must also under­stand the prac­tic­al real­ity of their work­place environment. 

A good man­ager ideally wel­comes enthu­si­ast­ic and motiv­ated gradu­ates who bring fresh ideas to the table rather than being threatened by them. 

In addi­tion to humil­ity, patience is an essen­tial qual­ity in all workplaces.

Some­times it is import­ant to be patient and real­ise that what we learnt in the­ory is much more com­plex to imple­ment in practice. 

It can take sev­er­al years in some cases! 

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Tourism’s ‘survival lies in sustainability’

Willem Niemeijer, CEO, YAANA Ventures

The tour­ism industry is much more than just the organ­isa­tion of a fleet­ing holiday. 

The sec­tor is at the fore­front of cross-cul­tur­al under­stand­ing and rais­ing aware­ness on the import­ance of envir­on­ment­al con­ser­va­tion and pol­lu­tion prevention. 

The industry’s very sur­viv­al lies in sustainability.

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‘Be both a generalist and a specialist’

Kevin Phun, Founder & Director, The Centre for Responsible Tourism Singapore

The world has changed. And so has tourism.

The oper­at­ing envir­on­ment is now more complex. 

This requires those involved in tour­ism to have an under­stand­ing of how dif­fer­ent things, includ­ing stake­hold­ers and extern­al forces, come together.

To be suc­cess­ful, you now very likely need to be both a gen­er­al­ist and a spe­cial­ist at the same time. To be com­pet­ent you need to be famil­i­ar with many dif­fer­ent disciplines.

That looks to be the new nor­mal, as glob­al sus­tain­ab­il­ity issues — rising sea levels, wild­life endan­ger­ment, and all the asso­ci­ated cli­mate-related prob­lems — become worse.

Not to for­get loc­al sociocul­tur­al and socioeco­nom­ic issues of con­cern, like the loss of cul­ture and her­it­age, infla­tion, and food scarcity.

Any young per­son should know that the tour­ism industry is more than just people pick­ing up their bags and going for a holiday.

Travel motiv­a­tions are now far more var­ied and com­plex — think volun­tour­ism, dark tour­ism etc. — as soci­et­ies change and people have more free­dom and choice.

Travel is a way to see and under­stand the world and to search for deep­er answers.

The implic­a­tions for young people join­ing the industry is that there is more pres­sure to devel­op a deep­er under­stand­ing of the above-men­tioned phe­nom­ena in a short­er time.

Our young ones live in a peri­od of time in which things evolve fast and, thanks to social media, instant grat­i­fic­a­tion is often taken as a norm.

Tour­ism is not about instant grat­i­fic­a­tion. It is about people, places, per­spect­ives, cul­tures, com­munit­ies, atti­tudes, etc.

Young people should take the oppor­tun­ity to use the diverse work exper­i­ences offered by hos­pit­al­ity and tour­ism to under­stand more deeply our world and its complexities.

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‘Fully embrace the concept of resilience’

Angelo Sciacca, Research Fellow in Circular Entrepreneurship, University of Greenwich, UK

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic showed the short­com­ings of the tour­ism sec­tor in terms of the lim­ited resi­li­ence of des­tin­a­tions worldwide. 

This means that in 2022 — as tour­ism is on the recov­ery path­way — resi­li­ence-build­ing should char­ac­ter­ise any tour­ism plan­ning and practices. 

New tour­ism pro­fes­sion­als should there­fore fully embrace the concept of resi­li­ence and determ­ine what is needed to build more resi­li­ent destinations.

It was nev­er more import­ant than now for tour­ism pro­fes­sion­als to under­stand the ‘new’ sus­tain­ab­il­ity frame­works and prac­tices, their bene­fits to com­munit­ies and nature, as well as their con­tri­bu­tions to eco­nom­ic­ally thriv­ing destinations. 

In my view, a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy can pro­mote the needed resilience. 

Cir­cu­lar eco­nom­ics should become the pil­lar of sus­tain­able tour­ism edu­ca­tion and be taken for­ward into prac­tice by young pro­fes­sion­als, wheth­er they embark on a career in the pub­lic, private, or third sector. 

For this to hap­pen, young tour­ism pro­fes­sion­als should see the tour­ism sec­tor as a multi-dis­cip­lin­ary industry. 

They should be open to spe­cial­ising in fields that enable a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy, such as con­cen­trat­ing on digit­al­isa­tion (and smart tour­ism) and resource val­or­isa­tion, cre­at­ing cir­cu­lar tour­ism-related jobs, and trans­lat­ing tra­di­tion­al resi­li­ence-build­ing prac­tices to new and innov­at­ive cir­cu­lar tour­ism busi­ness models. 

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‘Education is not enough’

Edwin Magio, Teaching & Research Assistant, Moi University, Kenya; Commonwealth Scholar, Leeds Beckett University, UK

If you are con­sid­er­ing a career in the tour­ism industry, you can get advice from dozens of people on and off the internet. 

It can be dif­fi­cult to know which advice to focus on and what will make the most dif­fer­ence in the long run. 

Before you start dream­ing about the day you will finally get a job and start work­ing in the tour­ism industry, here is what you need to know: 

Edu­ca­tion is not enough.

Recruit­ers are look­ing for applic­ants with pri­or know­ledge and under­stand­ing of tour­ism and its related fields. 

Edu­ca­tion is crit­ic­al in help­ing you gain the know­ledge, but do you have the pro­fes­sion­al attrib­utes and prac­tic­al skills required by the tour­ism industry? 

Employ­ers have expressed con­cerns about gradu­ates’ lack of neces­sary skills and attrib­utes. They also indic­ate that tour­ism gradu­ates have an inac­cur­ate under­stand­ing of the industry. 

There­fore, in addi­tion to know­ledge, it is crit­ic­al that you truly under­stand the sec­tor you want to enter and what skills and attrib­utes will increase your chances of secur­ing employ­ment and suc­ceed­ing in the industry.

Accord­ing to one study, the most import­ant skills and attrib­utes required in the tour­ism industry, as per­ceived by those already in the industry, are: 

• cus­tom­er service
• eth­ic­al beha­viour / integrity
• verbal com­mu­nic­a­tion, 
• accept­ance of responsibility
• atten­tion to detail 
• abil­ity to work under pressure,
• time man­age­ment
• writ­ten communication
• motiv­a­tion

Devel­op­ing these attrib­utes and skills will improve your employ­ment pro­spects and ensure that, once employed, you will be able to con­trib­ute to man­age­ment goals.

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What do you think?

What do you think? Share your own thoughts in a com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism, because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): What should you know before you start a career in travel & tour­ism? Map image by Har­ish Sharma (CC0) via Pixabay.

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