ONLINE COURSE HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM
An Introduction to the Travel and Hospitality Industry
Lay the foundation for a career in the tourism or hospitality industry with this practical, comprehensive foundation course of study.
This is awarded on completion of:
- The units Hotel Management, Food & Beverage Management & Ecotour Management
- A workplace project or work experience (approved by a tutor from the school, and equal to 200 hours)
Modules
Note that each module in the Qualification -Proficiency Award In Tourism & Hospitality is a short course in its own right, and may be studied separately.
Scope and Nature of Tourism
Tourism has become a major recreation pursuit and a worldwide commercial industry. It is so significant today that the economies of some regions (even some countries) are more heavily dependant upon tourism than anything else.
The tourism industry encompasses the provision of all those services used by people when travelling away from home, including booking services, transport, accommodation, tourist retail outlets and attractions.
Worldwide, millions of people are employed in the tourism industry – from coach drivers to travel agents through to hotel concierges, as well as all the other hundreds of occupations that cater for tourists and travellers.
Tourists travel to almost every country across the globe, looking for adventure, recreation and entertainment. They seek both new and familiar experiences, close to home and far abroad. Some travel independently, others in organised groups. Some look for security, others prefer their travel spiced with excitement and danger.
Tourism is never static – almost more than any other industry, tourism is affected by such things as natural disasters, political instability, and economic downturns. Adverse circumstances such as a tsunami or civil conflict in one area can lead to a boom in tourism in another, safer area. More predictably, the tourist industry is also affected by seasonal swings – with thousands of tourists visiting favoured destinations in the ‘high’ or peak season and then abandoning them in droves during the ‘low’ season.
Anyone involved in the travel and tourism industry needs to be prepared for such changes. They must also have excellent product knowledge: including knowledge of their customers, the services those customers will use, and the destinations they will travel to.
Travellers and Tourists
Tourism is largely a recreational pursuit. In other words, it is a holiday that involves travelling to a destination. Not all travellers are tourists however since the purpose of many travel trips is business. A sales rep who travels interstate to visit clients or an executive who travels overseas for meetings would not be considered a tourist. Similarly, a family member visiting and staying with a relative might not be considered a tourist.
Often, though, the boundaries between ‘tourists’ and other travellers overlap. Many business travellers, and other people travelling for non-leisure purposes, spend at least some time during their trip making use of ‘tourist’ facilities - such as visiting local attractions or staying in tourist accommodation.
Regardless of whether a person is a ‘traveller’ or ‘tourist’ when they travel away from home, they use many of the same facilities and services that cater for the travel industry, for example, booking agents, airlines, and vehicle hire services.
Tourism Industry Sectors
Tourists travel to destinations. They need transport systems to get to their destinations and once they have arrived they require accommodation, entertainment (or ‘attractions’) and other amenities (e.g. shops, garages, medical facilities).
The tourism industry is comprised of sectors that deal with the tourist’s needs. Sectors include:
• Marketing specialists – travel agents, tour wholesalers, and tourism promotional agencies
• Carrier or transport services – including rail, coach, airlines, and shipping services
• Accommodation sector – including hotels, resorts, motels, campgrounds, B&Bs, caravan parks, restaurants and cafes
• Attractions sector – including theme parks and other tourist-orientated entertainment facilities
• Tour operators – tourism guides, tour group leaders, drivers, and hosts.
Learning Facilities
ACS follows the old fashioned idea that “the student comes first”. Our staff are told to treat every student as an individual and respond promptly to their enquiries; and the facilities we have developed and continue to develop, are all focused on that goal. Facilities include:
- Offices in two time zones (UK and Australia) –which means an international team of academics are responding to students 5 days a week and 16 hours a day.
- An online student room with unique resources that are only available to students studying our courses, including online library.
- Bookshop offering quality downloadable e books
- A data base of 20 million words of unique information written by our staff over 3 decades that can be drawn upon if needed by academics for use in supporting our students.
- Systems that ensure assignments are tracked, marked and returned to students, fast -commonly within a round 1 week & rarely more than 2 weeks (note: many other colleges take longer).
- The school is active in social networking and encourages students to connect with us and each other.
- No automated handling of student phone enquiries. When you call you get a real person; or leave a message and a real person will call you back within a day, but more commonly within an hour or two.
- No additional charges for extra tutor support over the phone or email.
- Free careers advice for graduates –It is our policy to provide support and advice to our students even after they graduate. If a graduate needs help with getting a CV together, or advice on setting up a business or looking for work; they only need ask.
- The quality of academic staff is higher than many other colleges.
How our Courses Differ
- Courses are continually improved –we invite feedback from all graduates and change courses immediately the need is detected.
- Courses are relevant to the whole world –we try hard to teach make the learning transferable to any region or country because the world is increasingly a global economy
- Courses written by our staff, teach different skills to standard courses; giving a unique mix of skills and knowledge to provide a career advantage. Do you want an accredited certificate and the same skills as 100 other job applicants; or one of our courses with skills that no other applicants have?
- Certificates and diplomas are longer. They teach you more, and our qualifications have built a reputation amongst academics and industry as being a very high standard for this reason.
- We are focused on helping you learn in a way that improves your capacity to understand your discipline, apply knowledge, and continue learning and developing your capabilities beyond your course.
These things cannot be always said of other colleges.
Career Opportunities
Study alone can never guarantee career success; but a good education is an important starting point.
Success in a career depends upon many things. A course like this is an excellent starting point because it provides a foundation for continued learning, and the means of understanding and dealing with issues you encounter in the workplace.
When you have completed an ACS course, you will have not only learnt about the subject, but you will have been prompted to start networking with experts in the discipline and shown how to approach problems that confront you in this field.
This and every other industry in today’s world is developing in unforeseen ways; and while that is unsettling for anyone who wants to be guaranteed a particular job at the end of a particular course; for others, this rapidly changing career environment is offering new and exciting opportunities almost every month.
If you want to do the best that you can in this industry, you need to recognise that the opportunities that confront you at the end of a course, are probably different to anything that has even been thought of when you commence a course.
BOOKS
Visit our School bookshop at www.acsebook.com
- Downloadable ebooks that can be read on ipads, PC’s, Laptops, or readers like a Kindle.
- Titles are written by our principal and staff.
- Anyone can purchase books –ACS students are offered a student discount
