Three skills you need to work in adventure tourism

Posted on 21/07/2015 by Jess O'Connor

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.”

Have a great sense of humour – you’re going to need it!

When you work in adventure tourism, you often have to help people overcome their biggest fears. They are likely to be nervous, anxious and even a little bit unpredictable!

It’s therefore important to make them feel at ease and have a great sense of humour. After all, it is your job to ensure they have fun and finish the activity smiling.

“Don’t be shy in interviews and try to put your personality out there rather than say practised answers,” says GT.

“You must have a really good sense of humour for tourism, you’ll need it a lot so be ready to show it.”

Use your initiative and be open to new ways of doing things

Studying at ITC will prepare you for the industry, but don’t think the time for learning is over as soon as you graduate. When you start working you’ll continue learning new skills.

“Tourism jobs are constantly changing and evolving so you should be flexible and quick to learn new tasks,” GT says.

“Everyone makes mistakes and it’s okay to make them but you should be learning from them and not making the same mistake twice.”

Posted in News | Tagged Adventure Tourism, AJ Hackett Bridge Climb and Bungy, Career advice |