Thinking about a career in the Travel and Tourism industry? There are many career opportunities in this growing field. If you're interested in working with tourist or business travelers, you'll be pleased to learn about the many different types of jobs available in the hospitality business.

Jobs in Travel and Tourism

Travel Planning: If you're interested in helping people plan their leisure and business trips, working as a travel agent might be a good career option for you. Travel agencies hire people to work with clients. They identify client travel needs and research available options. This type of work involves customer service, sales, and administrative organization skills.

Lodging: Every hotel and resort in the world has to hire employees to fill an assortment of positions. Individuals with strong administrative and customer service skills are ideally suited for positions as front desk clerks and office assistants. Individuals with strong numerical skills may enjoy working in hotel bookkeeping or auditing.

Hotels and resorts must make sure that the grounds are in excellent condition and that the needs of guests are met throughout their stay. Lodging properties hire people to fill positions in housekeeping and grounds maintenance to make sure that the property is well kept. Upscale properties staff bellhops and concierge professionals to assist with meeting the needs of guests throughout their stays.

Many lodging properties have on-site meeting facilities and restaurants. Locations that have these types of amenities hire people to work as meeting and event planners, sales personnel, chefs, kitchen support staff, dining room servers, banquet servers, bartenders, and in other related positions.

Some properties also have on-site gift shops, which are staffed by retail clerks. Many properties have exercise rooms and spa facilities that must be staffed by professionals with skill specific to the different types of services offered. In many cases, staffing includes massage therapists, skin care professionals, and hair dressers.

Transportation: The transportation industry provides many types of job opportunities for people who want to work in travel and tourism. Airports, for example, hire people to staff ticket counters, provide ground support for the airlines, gift shops, etc. Many of the retail outlets in airports do their own hiring. There are also opportunities to work for rental car companies and other transportation providers on the grounds of airport facilities.

There are plenty of transportation related jobs in this industry that actually require travel. Airlines, for example, hire pilots and flight attendants. Bus and tour operators hire drivers. Cruise lines hire people to staff a wide variety of positions, including all of the jobs that are typically available in hotels plus captain and crew jobs.

Travel and Tourism Training

Education: Many schools offer formal training programs in travel and tourism. If you are thinking about entering this field, enrolling in a career training or degree program can be helpful. However, there is no specific credentialing requirement for entry into many jobs in this field.

Some employers prefer or require degrees for certain positions, and others focus more on finding people with the right skills and personality. Airlines, for example, prefer flight attendants who hold Bachelor's degrees. Hotels often recruit individuals with degrees in lodging and hospitality operations, but they also frequently promote good employees from within the company, regardless of formal training.

If you plan to enroll in a degree program that will prepare you to enter this field, you may want to consider majoring in: Travel & Tourism, Hospitality & Lodging Operations, or Hotel & Restaurant Management. If you're interested in this profession but would prefer earning a more general degree, good field of study options include Business Administration, Management, and Marketing.

Licensure Requirements: There are licensure requirements for some types of travel and tourism jobs. If you're interested in flying an airplane, you will have to earn a pilot's license. Tour bus operators must have a commercial driver's license. The Coast Guard sets the standards for licensure for boat captains and other crew positions.

Travel and Tourism Salary Expectations

Pay for individuals working in the travel and tourism field varies widely, because there is such a large range of occupation types. Jobs that require travel typically have higher rates of pay than those that do not require employees to be away from home for extended periods of time. Education, skill, and licensure requirements also impact pay.

As of 2006, the medial salary for travel agents was just over $29,000 per year. In lodging facilities, pay can range from minimum wage for low skill level positions, such as housekeepers and laundry attendants, to high salaries for successful managers and sales professionals, with a great deal of variation in between. The same is true for cruise lines.

In the airline industry, pilots earn the highest rate of pay. According to the Department of Labor, in 2006, the median earnings of pilots for major airlines were more than $145,000 annually. At this time, median earnings for flight attendants were just over $56,000. Reservationists and ticket clerks, both positions that do not require travel, earned approximately $33,000 per year during the same time frame.