Graduate careers advice: you and your travel and tourism degree

Graduate careers advice for what career options you can pursue with your travel and tourism degree.

Related jobs include:

• Event manager
• Holiday representative
• Hotel manager
• Marketing executive
• Tourism officer
• Travel agent

Work experience

Part-time opportunities can quite easily be found in the travel and tourism industry, and you should be able to combine paid work with your studies.

Voluntary work can also be quite easily acquired in this sector.

Graduates often opt for summer employment or working abroad in holiday camps, resorts or theme parks. Travelling through Europe will broaden your cultural awareness and language skills.

Exchange programmes allow you to spend time studying for your degree abroad. TEFL courses allow you to teach English as a foreign language in a foreign setting.

Details of work experience can be found here .

What sectors?

Numerous industries make up the travel and tourism sector such as tour operators, currency exchange, retail travel and tourist boards. Also encompassed are the fields of passenger transport and visitor attractions like zoos, museums and heritage sites.

The accommodation industry – hotels, hostels and holiday parks - is also a large employer, as is the field of conference and event management.

Your travel and tourism CV

A travel and tourism degree will provide you with knowledge of the tourism industry’s various structures, products and operations, along with an awareness of the practices of hotels, tourist boards, airlines and tour operators.

You will also learn about the relationship between the providers of tourism services and their consumers and about the issues of social responsibility and sustainability that affect the industry.

Transferable skills you should acquire include:

• teamwork;
• leadership;
• problem solving;
• IT skills;
• communication;
• time management;
• research and presentation.

Postgraduate study

In-house training is generally available in a range of specific areas within the industry. Availing of such opportunities will increase your prospects of promotion and enhance your knowledge of industry issues.

Courses tend to place an emphasis on management skills in such areas as heritage, hospitality and sustainability.

Broad business topics like human resources and management can be applied to various sectors.

More information on postgraduate studies can be found in our Further Study section.