Fresh Profile: Travel & Tourism Jobs

Published on 2008-03-18

According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, about 10% of U.S. GDP and employment is provided by the travel and tourism industry. Travel and tourism jobs span a variety of industry sectors, including transportation, conferences/conventions, hotels, and restaurants. But our industry profile will focus on travel and tourism jobs in three particular areas: cruise ships, luxury resorts and travel agencies.

Cruise ship jobs

Cruise ships are essentially floating hotels. They often travel to exotic locations such as the Bahamas and the Caribbean or unusual destinations such as Alaska or Antarctica. In contrast to ocean liners, cruise ship voyages are mostly round trip, returning passengers to their originating port after a designated period of several days to several months.

The major perk of working on a cruise ship - traveling the world for free - is offset by many downsides, including long shifts (12 hours or more, sometimes 7 days a week), cramped living quarters, and a demanding work environment. However, if you can withstand the physical and mental demands of the industry, cruise ship jobs provide unique work experience that is highly useful when applying for other travel industry jobs.

Resort jobs

Luxury vacation resorts, like other hospitality venues, are service-oriented environments, but with an important difference: that service must be of four or five-star quality. Standards are exceptionally high, and employees must have a neat appearance, warm and friendly manner, and fluency in English (and preferably another language or two as well).

Tips, wages and benefits tend to be better for luxury resort and hotel jobs than for other service-based travel jobs. Entry level staff should expect to work difficult shifts, including weekends, nights and holidays. On the plus side, resorts are often located in beautiful surroundings, and experienced employees working for international chains can take advantage of job openings in other countries.

Travel agent jobs

Travel agencies have been around since the mid-18th century, but the future is hazy for this particular segment of the tourism industry. Over 50% of travel bookings are now made online and less than 5% through travel agents as travelers use the Internet to educate themselves and find discounted rates for airfare and lodging. But not all the news is bad. Luxury travel and specialized trips still require the expertise of travel agents, and the large number of baby boomer retirees should mean study business for knowledgeable agents. Median earnings for travel agents are about $30,000 per year.

Make Fresho.com your first stop when looking for jobs in travel and tourism.