Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Potential work placement
organisations
and national) have job sections that may give you
some good information on travel and tourism
companies that are recruiting. There would be no
harm in making direct contact with the organisation
- it certainly shows initiative and may even land
you a placement! The same applies to the travel
trade press, where publications such as
Travel Trade
Gazette, Leisure Opportunities
and
Travel Weekly
carry job adverts;
As we saw in Unit 1 the sheer scale of the travel and
tourism sector means that where you choose for work
experience is really only limited by your imagination!
You could work in an airport, a travel agency, for a
tour operator, coach company, in a hotel or at a tourist
information centre - the possibilities are endless.
Having said that, your college of school may want
your work placement to be carried out locally so that
staff can monitor your performance more easily. Your
centre may also have very good links with travel and
tourism organisations from past work placements. The
next section of this unit looks in detail at the many
sources of information available to you for fi nding a
work placement.
•
College/school database - it's likely that your
institution already has a list of placement providers
that it has used in the past. Have a word with the
member of staff who looks after the database to see
what you could do for your work experience;
•
Websites - are a good source of advice on getting
a placement, as well as providing lists of placement
opportunities. Many are aimed at people in university,
but much of the information they contain applies
equally well to younger people looking for work
experience. The internet is also useful for searching
the websites of travel and tourism companies, as
well as the jobs pages of newspapers and agencies
specialising in travel and tourism recruitment;
Contacts and other resources
Finding a good placement takes time and a lot of hard
work. Thankfully there are a lot of sources of information
to help you, including:
•
Job centres - your local job centre may keep details
•
Tutors - are full of good ideas for placements and
of employers looking for placement students or you
can search for jobs at
www.direct.gov.uk
.
will help all they can;
If you have your sights set on a particular career and
are willing to travel away from your home area for a
placement, it sometimes helps with an application if you
are a customer of the company you are approaching,
for example you may have fl own from a certain airport
or booked with a particular holiday company.
•
Colleagues - other students on your course might
have placement ideas, perhaps because they already
work part-time for a travel and tourism organisation
or know somebody who does;
•
Careers advisers - either in your college/school or
working for a local company, careers advisers often
have up-to-date information on what placements
are available locally and further afi eld;
Activity 22.1
•
Family and friends - may already work in the sector
or know somebody who could help you fi nd a
placement;
Use the sources described above to investigate three
different work experience opportunities that appeal
to you, giving details of possible job roles, location,
skills development opportunities, etc. You may fi nd
the following websites useful for this activity:
•
Human resource (HR) departments - of large travel
and tourism organisations look after all employment
matters including any placement opportunities on
offer;
www.connexions-direct.com;
www.work-experience.org
•
Newspapers
and
magazines
-
although
advertisements in newspapers for placement jobs
are few and far between, newspapers (local, regional
This activity is designed to provide evidence for P1.
