Three skills you need to work in adventure tourism

ITC Short Course students get a taste for adventure tourism at Auckland Bridge Climb & Bungy

Love travel, the outdoors and working with people? A career in adventure tourism could be for you.

Imagine doing something like this every day:

The above GIF shows an ITC student bungy jumping off the Auckland Harbour Bridge, one of the city’s most popular adventure tourism activities.

We recently caught up with Graham Trubuhovich (GT), General Manager of AJ Hackett Bungy Auckland. He has some great advice for students who dream of working in the industry.

If you don’t like people, walk away now

“Tourism is firstly a people job,” says GT, “so you should enjoy talking and be prepared to talk about all sorts of random things with random people.”

The good news is, if you love meeting new people and listening to their stories, then working at a place like Bungy will really be your dream job.

“Our crew spend their days meeting customers, signing them up and then either jumping them off or walking them around very high things. That’s usually fun enough, but often the crazy jump stories from customers doing funny jumps or saying funny stuff (there’s been all sorts of confessions over the years…!), plus some of the funny costumes people wear (if they wear anything…) can make your day.”

(more…)

ITC Industry News Bulletin #9

The good news continues in this week’s bulletin, with positive industry growth rates at domestic, national and international levels.

TOP STORIES

Tourism and conservation to benefit from DOC/TIA partnership

The Tourism Industry Association (TIA) and Department of Conservation (DOC) have entered into a new partnership to protect New Zealand’s natural landscape. The partnership is centred around six key principles which are all designed to help the tourism industry and DOC work closely together to benefit the environment.

“People travel here from all over the world to enjoy our spectacular landscapes and natural scenery,” said TIA chief executive Chris Roberts. “As the tourism industry pursues its Tourism 2025 goal of almost doubling total tourism revenue to $41 billion, we want to work closely with DOC to manage that growth to ensure our environment is protected and the visitor experience is enhanced.”

(more…)

ITC Industry News Bulletin #8

Once again, this week’s tourism news is incredibly positive, even as we head into the winter months.

TOP STORIES

New Zealand favourite film destination

According to a study by the HBO television network (Game of Thrones, The Wire, etc.), New Zealand is the most popular film destination in the world. This is largely thanks to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler said ‘film tourism’ continues to be a strong aspect of New Zealand’s marketing strategy.

“We have continuing interest from film makers wanting to use New Zealand as their backdrop and we are confident our role of film tourism is going to keep us top of mind for those people wanting to live the dream and visit their favourite film locations,” Mr Bowler said in a statement.

(more…)

A day in the life of a travel agent

Michelle, Manager of Harvey World Travel Botany, shares what it’s like to work as a travel agent

What’s it really like to work as a travel agent? We recently interviewed Michelle Savusa, Manager at Harvey World Travel Botany, about her exciting career. Michelle has over 21 years of experience in the travel industry and has been working for Harvey World Travel for more than a decade. She was kind enough to share with us some of the wisdom she’s learned along the way.

ITC: Describe a typical day in your job – what is it really like to work for a travel agency?

Michelle: Each day can be very different and often unpredictable. We receive enquiries via phone, walk-in and email. Most of our day is spent on the following tasks:

(more…)

ITC students celebrate different cultures at Global Wednesday event

Team India, who won this year’s award for Best Costumes at Global Wednesday

What do you get when you combine delicious food + colourful costumes + fun skits? Global Wednesday, of course!

Every year ITC hosts Global Wednesday, a student event dedicated to celebrating different countries and cultures.

Each class is required to prepare a presentation about their chosen country, and this often turns into one big celebratory feast, complete with plenty of music, fun and laughter.

(more…)

ITC Industry News Bulletin #7

In this week’s Industry News Bulletin, New Zealand has been named one of the most peaceful countries in the world – yet another great selling point for the tourism industry

TOP STORIES

NZ makes top 5 peaceful countries

New Zealand is the fourth most peaceful country in the world, according to the latest Global Peace Index by the Institute for Economics & Peace. This places us just behind Iceland, Denmark and Austria. Yet another reason why New Zealand is such a fantastic tourism destination! (more…)

We took our intern bungy jumping and this is what happened

Pictured: ITC intern Vaheana bungy jumps off Auckland Harbour Bridge. Thanks for the great day AJ Hackett Bungy!

Vaheana, our intern from French Polynesia, has been helping out the ITC marketing team over the past several weeks. She recently joined ITC tutor Mel on a short course and was given the opportunity to bungy jump off the Harbour Bridge – a true New Zealand tourism experience! Vaheana shares what happened on this exhilarating day out.

Thanks to Lesley and Mel, who kindly offered to take me on an ITC Adventure Tourism short course, I had the amazing opportunity to jump off the Harbour Bridge.

As soon as we arrived at AJ Hackett Bungy the friendly staff started to get us ready for the attraction. We had to wear a suit, a harness and of course a helmet. Once everyone was ready Sophie – our tour guide for the day – gave us a little bit of history about the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The Bridge was originally built in the 50s to link the North Shore to the Auckland CBD. Before that, people had to take a ferry to go to the North Shore.

(more…)

ITC Industry News Bulletin #6

In this week’s Industry News Bulletin, autumn arrivals continue to drive positive growth, Rotorua tourism industry sees unusually busy winter and Qatar Airlines is once again named Airline of the Year

TOP STORIES

 Autumn arrivals continue to drive positive growth

2015 is shaping up to be an amazing year for the tourism industry, with Tourism New Zealand reporting ‘record-setting’ holiday arrivals in autumn. In May alone total holiday arrivals were up by 16.5 per cent. Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler said the latest data “brings us even closer to an annual arrivals figure of three million”.  (more…)

3 Ways To Celebrate Matariki 2016

The Matariki constellation. Image credit: http://www.mch.govt.nz/nz-identity-heritage/matariki

The 2016 Matariki Festival, celebrating the M­āori New Year, will begin on June 06 2016. This is an important time in the Māori calendar, as it is an opportunity to “connect with, and give thanks to the land, sea and sky”.

This celebration offers people a chance to come together over traditional food, rituals and etertainment. There are plenty of public events running over the festival period – why not make the most of the opportunity to get involved and learn more about the Māori culture? (more…)

ITC Industry News Bulletin #5

In this week’s Industry News Bulletin, Jetstar announces new flights, Air New Zealand cleans up at the Paris Air Show Awards and the cruise industry is going from strength to strength

TOP STORIES

New air services a boost for tourism

Jetstar today announced it will add new flights to at least four regional New Zealand destinations. The Tourism Industry Association believes this will have a positive impact on New Zealand tourism, making it easier for people to access remote areas of the country. “Offering them [tourists] more good value options for flights will definitely boost that spending,” said TIA Chief Executive Chris Roberts.  (more…)