Job profile

Tourism Officer

Tourism Officer Job Profile

What is a Tourism Officer?

Tourism Officers plan and promote tourism to bring in visitors and make a region or site more financially stable.

Tourism Officers are most frequently employed by municipal governments; however, they may also be employed by private businesses or by other government agencies. Because the tourism industry encompasses such a broad scope, the role is complex and may involve many different types of work. Important concerns include advertising and promoting, as well as the expansion of services and facilities.

People are going farther and travelling more frequently than they ever have before. Based on the information IPS collected, there were 6.4 million visitors to the UK who spent a total of £5.6 billion. The major objective of a Tourism Officer is to disseminate information to the general public about a region or service to provide the public with something interesting and noteworthy.  Relations with conventional media, content production and other social media activities are all handled by Tourism Officers. It is a strategy that is meant to be used over a long period of time. Companies can reach their revenue goals by keeping a constant presence, and Tourism Officers can help them with that.

Responsibilities

Some of the most common responsibilities that Tourism Officers have include: 

  • Conducting strategic planning and development activities such as commissioning and/or generating tourist plans and economic impact studies for execution, or lobbying, designing, and implementing marketing campaigns.
  • Creating and delivering committee reports and business proposals.
  • Creating advertising materials and displays.
  • Creating tourism-related information and promotional materials such as art, news releases, and brochures..
  • Creating press releases as well as materials for travel guides and newsletters.
  • Creating and scheduling trips and itineraries.
  • Creating e-tourism platforms, such as websites, and business databases.
  • Preparing and submitting financing applications.
  • Organising and attending exhibits and holiday fairs.
  • Planning and executing unique and seasonal events and festivals.
  • Managing and organising tourism service PR through a variety of social media channels, such as Twitter and Facebook.
  • Communicating with local operators, media, designers, and printers.
  • Purchasing goods and services.
  • Managing employees, finances, and training requirements.
  • Providing financial and business guidance and distributing e-newsletters to local companies.
  • Contributing to product development.
  • Giving speeches to local political parties, community organisations, and schools, as well as managing media inquiries.
  • Conducting market research with members of the general public and visitors to certain attractions.

Salary

The UK national average salary for a Tourism Officer is £39,144 per year, ranging from £24,000 to £64,000. With an average of £2,906 cash compensation. The average London salary for a Tourism Officer is £40,055 per year, ranging from £25,000 to £64,000. With an average of £3,446 cash compensation.

Working hours and work location 

As a Tourism Officer, you will typically work a conventional 37.5-hour week. However, there is a possibility that you will be required to work certain evenings in order to attend meetings, events, or exhibitions. The job is often performed in an office setting, although it occasionally requires travel to different places inside and outside the workplace throughout the course of a single workday. Tourism Officers may work for local authorities, public sector agencies or private companies.

What to expect

Communication skills of the highest calibre are highly valued in practically every area of the business, and their importance develops with rising levels of professional progress. When you work in the tourism sector, every day is different because you meet individuals from diverse walks of life, ages, nations, and temperaments. As a result, it is critical to be able to communicate in a way that correctly represents the firm while also speaking to customers in a way that is easy for them to understand and with which they can connect.

A Tourism Officer must always maintain sight of the reality that the client provides the funds required to pay personnel and other expenses, allowing a site to retain a profit and improve its physical infrastructure. Because of this, it is important for staff and management to make customers happy, if not thrilled. To give exceptional customer service, you must first understand the client’s demands and then be able to fulfil them. Those with great organisational skills are in high demand in the tourism business. Because it is important to multitask and respond to demands that come on the spur of the moment, it is critical to maintain an organisational structure in place in order to carry out one’s daily obligations in the most effective manner possible. One piece of advice is to plan each day ahead of time and keep a checklist of the chores that must be performed.

Consequently, you will be able to develop excellent time management skills. Tourism-related businesses are more likely than others to deal with clientele from a variety of nations and cultural traditions. To have a successful career in this field, you need to understand other cultures and be able to look beyond your own. Customers don’t always have the same ideas, values, or beliefs, so it’s important to get rid of any cultural barriers that may be in the way. The employee’s knowledge of other cultures, which is an important social skill, makes it much easier for a customer to feel at ease and at home in their surroundings. The goal is to meet their needs and wants in order to win them over.

One businessman singing a document at a desk while another businessman looks on.

Qualifications

Even if you don’t have a diploma from a third-level school, you can still work in this field. This means that graduates from any field can get a job, but employers are increasingly looking for people with the right qualifications. In addition, the majority of companies in the travel and tourism business want a certain amount of prior expertise in the field of tourism. In this job market, most graduates with degrees in languages, travel, tourism, leisure, business studies, marketing, management,, or journalism have an edge over their peers. 

Skills

must have skills:

As a Tourism Officer, you will need to acquire or possess the following skills:

  • Outstanding abilities in both oral and written as well as interpersonal communication
  • The capacity to communicate with tourist industry stakeholders, community groups, and community members
  • A high degree of expertise in the creation of informational and communicative content
  • Excellent abilities in providing customer service, as well as knowledge of both the requirements of tourists and the tourism industry
  • The ability to work independently, as part of a large group, or as the leader of a group, while maintaining cohesion and maximising productivity.
  • Excellent capabilities in the areas of management, administration, organisation, and project management
  • The ability to think creatively and innovatively about strategic problems, together with strong abilities in public relations and marketing.

Work experience

In this line of work, it is vital to have relevant job experience, which can be obtained by working during the summer months or during breaks from school, or by working as a volunteer or paid assistant at a tourism-related business. Work experience in commercial fields like sales, marketing, or retailing, as well as in museums or information fields, can also be helpful.

You will learn most of what you need to know through hands-on experience, usually by working with coworkers or observing and participating in the completion of a project. If you work for a local government, you may be eligible to participate in training programmes offered by the council in a variety of fields, including the following:

  • IT skills
  • Reporting
  • Requests for financial support
  • Presentation
  • Networking
  • Personal development


Training in a specialised field may be funded by private businesses if such training is required by a particular project. The Tourism Management Institute (TMI) and The Tourism Society both provide a variety of educational opportunities, including general and specialised training courses, seminars, and conferences. In addition to providing access to opportunities for professional growth and networking, another benefit of professional membership is networking with professionals who already work in this field. Postgraduate tourism management credentials are also offered to establish a particular professional specialisation.

Helping out with any of the following activities or taking part in them is also helpful: 

  • Organised events
  • Commercial tourist attractions
  • Museums or galleries
  • Departments of recreational services run by local authorities


It is important to take advantage of any opportunity that will allow you to improve your customer service and business acumen. 

Career prospects

There is a lot of competition for the limited number of positions that become available each year in this line of business. The majority of tourist officials begin their careers as assistants in the field. Open jobs can be found in magazines like Leisure Management and Marketing Week, as well as their online versions, online job boards, and the internet.

After you’ve been hired, you’ll need to show that you can do tasks well. If you don’t move to take advantage of the fact that most local governments only hire one Tourism Officer, you may not have many chances to move up in your career. If you have enough experience, you could be able to advance through the ranks and become a manager. In this role, you’ll usually be in charge of budgets, employees, and operations, as well as working at a strategic level. It is also possible to move up into senior management and take on a wider range of responsibilities. For instance, contributing to the expansion of businesses and economic activity in a particular location. Because there aren’t many jobs at this level, you’ll need to get a lot of different kinds of experience to be competitive.

After getting enough experience and becoming an expert in a certain field, some Tourism Officers go to work for private consultancies or set themselves up as independent consultants. Freelance work in marketing and consulting, as well as starting, growing, and running a tourist destination, are all good options. There is a chance that something new will come up as a result of the ongoing projects to revitalise and improve the economy.

Related Courses

This one-year, full-time programme at the University of the West of Scotland’s London Campus combines the MBA with the digital marketing component into a comprehensive curriculum. The MBA part of the class looks at business operations and procedures, such as accounting, finance, and human resources, as well as the connections between all of these parts of a business. In addition to having a broad understanding of business, students who take this class will have the opportunity to specialise in digital marketing in particular.

The full-time curriculum that lasts one year and is offered by the University of West Scotland will provide you with the executive training you need to launch a successful career in tourism and, in addition, will provide you with a strong foundation in accounting. This course may be taken at the UWS London Campus, which is situated in the middle of London’s central business district.

In London, at the University of the West of Scotland, you can get a one-year foundation degree that will prepare you for college courses and set you up for a career in tourism. In this class, you’ll learn about current research sources and case studies in the field. Students will learn important business skills and improve their English and study skills while taking important business classes. With the knowledge you get from the Business Foundation Program, you’ll be ready to go to college as an undergrad.

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