Travel and tourism degrees under the spotlight

Aspire 2004 Conference Special: A scheme proposed by ABTA and ITT that will benchmark travel professionals was the subject of debate at a recent industry event. Thomas Cook director of sales, Ian Derbyshire said he would welcome a scheme that improved the public perception of agents, which he said was poor. The Certified Travel Professional scheme will offer a new professional qualification that can apply to all travel industry staff. ABTA and ITT hopes it will become a widely recognised badge of professional standards within the industry. But travel and tourism students, who made up the majority of the lively audience at the Aspire conference, were confused as to what the scheme would mean for them. One student from the University of Hertfordshire asked whether the scheme would render his degree worthless. The panel of industry representatives were united in their view that not enough is being done to encourage graduates. The closing debate of Aspire, which was meant to focus on terrorism and the travel industry, started off talking about education and the industry. Hoseasons chief executive, Richard Carrick said: “We need to wake up to graduates. Not enough of us are offering placements and graduate training schemes.” He also said the current system of qualification was confusing because of the number of ways into the industry and said it was too time consuming. “I can’t think of another profession that takes ten year’s to get to gold level. It takes five years to be a surgeon, but ten to be a certified travel consultant.” ABTA president John Harding said that while he welcomed graduates, many of the people at the top of the industry had come from other industries like accountancy. “This is because we don’t have professionalism in selling and retailing” he said. First Choice managing director UK distribution, John Wimbleton disagreed. He said “Over the last ten years a number of our senior executives have come through our graduate training scheme.” Bill Maxwell, trade relations director at Wallace Arnold said the travel industry lacked an official body to encourage students to take degrees and direct them to the right jobs in the industry. He also said the industry was not doing enough to employ graduates. Mr Derbyshire said he supported travel and tourism degrees, but said that a modern apprentice was equally as valuable as a degree. He also said that travel companies should get more involved in the development of a degree course to make sure it is relevant to the industry. Report by Ginny McGrath

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