Become a Hospitality and Tourism Professional
The tourism industry is comprised of sectors that deal with the tourist’s needs. Sectors include:
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Marketing specialists – travel agents, tour wholesalers and tourism promotional agencies
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Carrier or transport services – including rail, coach, airlines and shipping services
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Accommodation sector – including hotels, resorts, motels, campgrounds, B&B's, caravan parks, restaurants and cafes
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Attractions sector – including theme parks and other tourist-oriented entertainment facilities
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Tour operators – tourism guides, tour group leaders, drivers and hosts
The boundaries between ‘tourists’ and other travelers overlap. Many business travelers and other people traveling for non-leisure purposes spend at least some time during their trip using ‘tourist’ facilities such as visiting local attractions or staying in tourist accommodation.
Regardless of whether a person is a ‘traveler’ 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.
Tourists travel to many different types of destinations. They need transport to get to theses destinations and once there, they require accommodation, entertainment (or ‘attractions’) and other amenities (eg. shops, garages, medical facilities).
Some sectors overlap; others operate independently. For example, a large tourism resort might offer accommodation, attractions, tours and marketing services, while a travel agent is likely to be only involved in the marketing sector.
Broadly there are three types of tourism systems in each country:
Many organisations specialise in one or two tourism systems; for example, a government-sponsored tourist authority caters for inbound and domestic tourists, but not outbound tourists.
Course Content
14 modules need to be completed and passed in exams. These would commonly include the following, though you may substitute some modules for others offered by the school, provided the substitutions are approved by a member of the academic staff.
Modules
Note that each module in the Qualification - Associate Diploma In Hospitality and Tourism is a short course in its own right, and may be studied separately.
What Do People Need to Think About When Traveling?
A travel plan should encompass all of those things that need to be dealt with on the trip since its aim is to make the trip as smooth as possible. Things to consider:
- Accommodation
- Transport
- Travel routes
- Food
- Luggage (what to take, restrictions on number and weight of bags)
- Health (before and during the trip)
- Money (credit cards, travelers cheques, or other)
- Insurance.
- What to see, what to do
A travel plan is not the same as an itinerary. An itinerary is a document that states the booking arrangements made prior to the trip including: times, dates, destinations, accommodation, and transport. As shown above, a travel plan is broader in scope. The travel plan might be formulated by the traveler or a package tour operator.
Tourism is a large and diverse industry that reaches every corner of the world. Some tourists travel short distances whereas others travel very long distances. Tourists may travel:
- Locally, not far from home (e.g. a weekend in a hotel in the city)
- Within the region - traveling by car, bus, or rail
- Interstate (region to region, county to county)
- Internationally.
What's Different About this Diploma?
Options to choose electives that you don't find in similar diplomas elsewhere.
- A longer, more in depth diploma than what is offered at many other colleges (Compare the duration -1500 hours). Study more, learn more, go further in your career or business.
- A stronger focus on learning (some colleges focus more on assessment than we do -but we believe that what you learn is what makes the difference)
- Exceptional tutors...compare the qualifications and experience of our staff (see staff profiles at ... http://www.acsedu.com/about-us/our-staff.aspx) ....after all, it doesn't make sense to choose where to study if you don't first know who will be teaching you.
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; 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.
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 learned 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.
