Continuing Your Education in Travel and Tourism

Several four-year institutions of higher education in Texas offer related bachelor’s degrees, including:

TEMM Career Fields

Richland College’s Travel, Exposition and Meeting Management program can prepare you for several different career fields.

Exposition, exhibition and trade show management includes the planning of events that bring buyers and sellers together.

Job titles may include:

Conference coordinator or associate conference coordinator Marketing coordinator Operations coordinator or associate operations coordinator Sales administrator Show director or manager Trade show assistant

Meeting and event management includes career opportunities for managers who ensure that meetings and events, from small to large, are productive and successful. Meeting and event managers work for corporations, associations, hotels, professional organizations and nonprofit and religious organizations, among others.

Job titles may include:

Account executive Administrative assistant Conference director Corporate meeting director Event planner or manager Meeting manager Meeting planner or senior meeting planner Special events coordinator

The job of meeting and convention planner placed 39th on Money Magazine’s 2007 list of top 50 jobs in the country taking into consideration job growth rate, stress levels, flexibility in hours and working environment, creativity and opportunities for job advancement, with growth rate in the profession a hearty 22 percent in the next decade.

Hospitality generally consists of two service sectors: hotels and lodging and restaurant and food service. If you enjoy meeting a wide variety of different people and working in an environment that is different every day, you’re an ideal candidate for this booming industry.

Job titles may include:

Catering manager Convention services manager Front office manager General or assistant manager Sales and marketing manager

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Career Voyages for in-demand occupations lists the hospitality industry as one of the nation’s top job markets for employment through the year 2016. The U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration lists the hospitality industry as a high-growth sector, with accommodation and food services making up about 8.1 percent of employment in the country. Overall job openings are expected to grow 18 percent through 2012, adding more than 1.6 million new jobs.

Hospitality and Travel Jobs, sponsored by AT&T and Yahoo! Hot Jobs, lists job opportunities in hospitality and travel categories, with classified ads sorted by geographical location.

Travel and tourism offers a wide variety of careers in which travel agents price or cost a travel product, sell the experience, coordinate logistics, process reservations, provide customer service and more.

Job titles may include:

Account assistant or executive Airline sales manager Car rental fleet manager Costing coordinator Cruise coordinator Cruise sales representative Group tour coordinator Marketing manager Public relations director Rental agent Reservation agent Sales agent Tour guide director Travel agency manager

Skills for Success in the Travel and Tourism Industry

Though careers within the travel, tourism, meeting planning, exposition and hospitality industries are widely varied in their job responsibilities, they share important skills sets for success:

America’s Career Infonet and the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook (2008-2009 edition) give detailed information about the skills, abilities, work activities and recommended education for jobs in the travel- and hospitality-related fields, which may include:

Professional positions vary significantly depending on your level of experience, region of the country and size of hiring organization.

According to America’s Career Infonet, related occupations include the following salaries across the nation: