Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Tourism Administration Offers A Combination of Practical Experience and Hands-on Training

If you’ve ever considered a job working in: hotel and restaurant general management, human resources management, sales and marketing management, convention services coordination and tour coordination, then the field of Hospitality Administration and Tourism Administration may be for you. Each of these positions entails a variety of tasks. Here, we take a look at two of these career paths you can take.

For example, as a hotel manager you would play a very active role onsite. This role would include leading hotel personnel and mangers of various departments as well as acting as a liaison between hotel guests and staff. In some cases, managers also handle greeting customers, especially in the case of important figures and frequent guests. If there are special events, conferences or business meetings being held at the hotel, it’s usually the work of the manager to ensure that things run smoothly and that supplies and security are in place. Lastly, hotel managers may oversee the daily fiscal workings of the facility. Another job example in the tourism admin field is that of a human resources manager. This person is in charge of any of the following: recruiting and staffing, employee orientation, development, and training; organizational and space planning, performance management and improvement systems; compensation and benefits administration; employee services and counseling; and more.

With hospitality revenues in excess of $61.4-billion from 60,000 different companies that employ more than 1.66-million Canadians and the industry being pegged as the country’s second largest employment sector with 290,690 new jobs being created between 2006 and 2015, now is a great time to enter the tourism administration field.

At Centennial College, students can study tourism administration and graduate with an Ontario College Advanced Diploma in just three years. Courses cover a full range of business practices in marketing, human resources, finance and industry operations — as applied to the entire hospitality and tourism field. The training ends with a 15-week industry internship that occurs in the final semester, which enables students to relate classroom theory to the practical world, while adding another career educational dimension to their career preparation. Field placement enables the student to better understand the dynamics of the industry, increase their knowledge of industry practices and provides a competitive advantage of experience in the job market.

However, before they can be sent into the field, students have access to many on-campus resources that enhance learning, including a full-service hospitality management centre, on-site conference centre and state-of-the-art computer labs. Specific courses in which they participate include: Geography and Tourism, Kitchen & Dining Room Practices, Introduction to Hospitality Accounting, Report Writing for Hospitality, Purchasing for the Service Industry and many others.

In order to apply to this Hospitality and Tourism Administration program, students must present at minimum an Ontario Secondary School Diploma or equivalent or be 19 years of age or older. They must also possess compulsory English 12C or U or skills assessment, or equivalent.


Centennial College: Hospitality Tourism Admin Program

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