Travel & Tourism
The industry has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic with many businesses closed and others facing the toughest restrictions. To help overcome this challenging time the sector is looking for graduates with fresh ideas and a willingness to work hard.
What areas of leisure and tourism can I work in?
Opportunities can be categorised into:
- Leisure – betting and gambling (e.g. casinos and horseracing), culture and heritage (e.g. museums, galleries and heritage sites) and leisure and entertainment (e.g. cinemas, bowling alleys, arcades, holiday/summer camps and theme parks).
- Tourism – passenger services (e.g. air, sea, rail and road) and travel and tourism (e.g. hotels, travel agencies, tour operators, tourist information centres, attractions and adventure tourism).
If you have great people and customer service skills, play to your strengths in a hands-on, customer-facing role. If you’d prefer to work behind the scenes, graduates are needed in a variety of head-office functions including administration, finance, IT, marketing, HR and sales. If you’re up to the challenge of combining the two then general management jobs are widely available.
When researching careers you’ll likely see some crossover with other sectors. For example, with healthcare (sports physiotherapy), hospitality and events management (hotel careers), media and internet (sport or travel journalism), teacher training and education (PE teaching) and transport and logistics (jobs in passenger services).
The majority of employers in this sector are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Employment opportunities are also available in local authorities, sports associations and national governing bodies.
What’s it like working in the leisure and tourism industry?
If you think that a career in leisure and tourism is an easy way to have fun while being paid you should think again.
Far from being an easy option, careers in the leisure and tourism sector require hard work, dedication and a genuine passion for what you do.