The World's Your Oyster

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday July 26, 2006

Amy De Lore

Travel is a growing, competitive employment sector. Amy De Lore reports.

For many people a job is a means of financing holidays. However, some an increasing number of young professionals who work in the burgeoning travel and hospitality industries are managing to combine work and travel.

Although there are plenty of opportunities, the down side is that there is a lot of competition for the best jobs.

Flight Centre, which employs 6000 travel consultants in Australia and a further 8000 worldwide, took on just 1600 of the 75,000 people who applied for jobs last year. Australian ski resort Perisher Blue gets 10 applicants for every one of its 1200 seasonal jobs.

One of the best ways to get your foot in the door is to make sure you have the right qualifications. This is particularly important if you're applying for a job in the hospitality industry, where employers expect a high level of professionalism.

"Ten years ago you could get a job with a diploma or certificate and do quite well," says Guy Bentley, principal and chief executive of the Blue Mountains Hotel School. "Now, those people tend to get stuck at supervisor level while the people with degree-level qualifications go past them."

A wide variety of tourism-related tertiary courses are available through universities and TAFE schools, and private colleges such as the Blue Mountains Hotel School offer degree-equivalent qualifications.

The Hotel School in Sydney is a partnership between Southern Cross University and the Mulpha Group (its portfolio includes the Intercontinental in Sydney, Hayman Island and Sanctuary Cove). It offers a bachelor of business degree in hotel management.

Participants are students of the university but complete their three-year course at a school attached to the Intercontinental.

Both the Hotel School and its Blue Mountains equivalent report high employment rates for their graduates, who can generally expect quick progression up the corporate ranks.

"We can't produce enough graduates at the moment," Bentley says. "Before the end of their last semester, 80 per cent of our graduates have management positions to go to."

Pam Segal, manager and director of studies at Sydney's Australian Federation of Travel Agents College, tells a similar story. The college runs a 22-week certificate III in tourism, which covers the practical aspects of working in a travel agency, and boasts that 95 per cent of its graduates are employed within four weeks of completing the course.

Michael Murphy, general manager of human resources at Flight Centre, says the company encourages employees to get a first-hand view of the product they are selling by offering discounted fares and educational tours at company expense.

Australians are big travellers, so industry experience here can be very marketable overseas.

Perisher Blue's human resources manager, Gavin Girling, says the competition for jobs makes Australian snowfield workers highly sought after elsewhere and many take the opportunity to split their working year between the northern and southern hemispheres.

"We've got two ski instructors here who are now in their 40th year of doing that," Girling says.

Aiming high

Peter Rugg, assistant front desk manager, Hilton Dubai Creek, United Arab Emirates

At 24, Peter Rugg is a front desk manager in a Hilton hotel in the United

Arab Emirates with three other international postings and a string of stints

at high-profile Sydney hotels already on his resume.

"I'd love to be a general manager before I'm 33," says the Connells Point man, who finished year 12 in 1999.

A business degree from the Hotel School in Sydney was the springboard that launched Rugg's career, but things really took off three years ago when

he was the sole Australian from 6000 applicants accepted into the Hilton Hotels Elevator Program.

"It's a program designed to create general managers," says Rugg, who has since spent time at Hilton resorts in Colombo, Tokyo Bay and Dubai Creek, as well as working in the company's area office in Singapore.

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

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