Business Success Guide

Did a “gap year” abroad give you a permanent case of the travel bug? Or perhaps your happiest childhood memories are of the vacations you took with your family. Either way, you know that your dream career is one that will expose you to a wide variety of people, languages and cultures, preferably on a daily basis. If this is the case, you should consider a career in travel and tourism. To learn how to break into the industry, consider attending travel school. Look for a tourism college in your area.

Travel School Opens Doors

Sure, you could probably get an entry-level job bussing tables in a hotel lounge tomorrow. But is that really the kind of job you want? The travel and tourism industry offers a lot of opportunities that are easier to seize with a diploma from a tourism college in hand.

Top 4 Advantages of Tourism College

1. International accreditation - Are you planning to parlay your career in travel & tourism into a new home abroad? Building a new life for yourself in another country is exciting, but is not without its challenges. It can be difficult to find work without the built-in support network of one’s friends and family. That’s why having an internationally recognized accreditation can come in handy. Make sure that your tourism college offers international accreditation, e.g., the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AN & LA) diplomas.

1. Co-op programs – Travel school co-op programs give students crucial real-life experience. They also help students foster connections within the travel & tourism industry. And some schools offer paid co-op programs – at home and abroad – making it easier for students to pay their way through school.

1. Job placement services - Good tourism colleges maintain their own connections within the industry. Ideally, the agencies, airlines, etc., come to them, looking for new graduates to hire. This makes it much easier for graduates to find quality jobs quickly.

1. Secrets for breaking into more competitive job markets – The interviewing process for flight attendants is famously grueling. Some schools offer courses that teach prospective flight attendants what they need to know… before they even “land” their first interview. Such programs are intended to give students the confidence and professionalism that they will need to “fly” through their interviews.

So what are you waiting for?

Start your search for a tourism school today. A tourism diploma can:

• make you more attractive to potential employers
• help you gain co-op experience
• help you pay your way through school
• help you find a better job more quickly after graduation

Contact Canadian Tourism College for more information on their Travel and Tourism courses.

Percey Evans is a freelance writer who works for Higher Education Marketing, a leading Web marketing firm specializing in Google Analytics, Education Lead Generation, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Mobile SMS Alerts, Social Media Marketing and Pay Per Click Marketing, among other Web marketing services and tools.

Want to start a new career but don’t know which direction to go into? There are limitless possibilities but knowing what you want to do with your life isn’t always as simple as it may seem. If you like traveling, here are just a few careers you might be interested in.

A chef on luxury boats and yachts, travel the world with the rich and the famous for months, cooking their meals and receiving a nice pay check each month. The requirements would include chef training, experience and a passport. If you love food, the sea and traveling, this could be the perfect career for you. Most boat chefs are recruited through agencies, so once you get your training and experience, send your C.V. through and network with other people in the industry and it won’t be very difficult to get in there.

Private or Commercial Pilots get to travel the world, meet new people and they get quite a nice pay check every month. There is a certain respect that you get as a pilot because it’s quite an accomplishment being able to fly an aircraft around the world. To become a pilot you must attend a flight school and complete your pilot training and you will go through the ranks with the more flight hours and experience you get. Pilots travel the world, stay in the nicest hotels and get special treatment wherever they go. So whether you want to be a pilot or an instructor at an aviation school, this is a very exciting career to go into.

If chef school or a flight school is a bit much for you then maybe being a “fun supervisor” at a casino is more up your alley. Many casinos today, especially in Las Vegas, employ people to have fun with their guests and ensure they have a good time. Yes, they actually pay you to have fun in their casino and hotels. “Fun supervisors” ensure that guests keep coming back to their casino or hotel by making sure that there’s always laughter in the air, drinks in their hands and excitement all around them. Getting that very sought-after job title might be a little tricky because you have to be lively, likable and most important of all, fun even when you don’t really feel up to it. Sending just your C.V won’t work; you will need to show the Casino why it will be very profitable to pay you to be there and prove to them that players will spend more time and money while you are around.

If you are a creative individual who has a keen eye for the aesthetics of design and you pay great attention to detail, then graphic design might just be the right career for you. Many of those employed in the field will tell you how much they love making a living doing what they do best and are passionate about.

The job market for graphic designers is growing steadily and is expected to do so until at least around 2018. This growth has been brought about primarily by the ever-increasing popularity of the internet and online forms of media. However, due to the fact that there are already around 192,000 graphic designers employed in the United States, there is considerable competition for every position available. New graduates of a Bachelor’s degree in graphic design soon find out that there are many people who possess the same set of basic skills and that getting contracts and being hired depends on things like having several years experience in the field, a large and impressive portfolio and a network of influential contacts. As a potential future graphic designer, it is important to start building your portfolio early on by doing all design work you can get your hands on. If you are having trouble finding work, you can offer your services for free or complete some projects of your own.

The average salary for a graphic designer working in the United States is slightly higher than $48,000. If you compare the amount of education, and degree of expertise required to those of other careers that require a degree, it may seem that the salary of a graphic designer is quite low. This low average salary is due to the large supply of graphic designers that want work and the relatively small number of jobs available for them to fill. When there are so many qualified people to choose from, employers find that some will accept a smaller salary in order to get a job. However, this is not always the case. Some designers earn around $75,000 a year and a few of the most well-respected and experienced graphic designers make over $100,000 per year. Despite the relatively low salary, designers generally have a higher level of job satisfaction compared to other careers because they genuinely enjoy the work they do every day.

The option of being self-employed or doing freelance work provides the career with a degree of freedom that few other careers benefit from. Freelance workers are often paid by the project, which enables them to schedule their own working hours and only work the number of hours necessary to complete a project properly. Taking this into consideration, making $40,000 a year for only 20 hours of work per week on average doesn’t sound that bad. This way you can make a decent living and have plenty of time to spend doing things you wouldn’t have time for working the standard 40 hour work week.