It used to be that industry veterans looking to recommend a local travel school to aspiring agents had plenty to choose from. But changes in the industry over the past 10 to 15 years caused enrollments to plummet, drastically reducing the number of travel schools across the country.
Since then it’s been difficult to find information on schools that offer training for travel industry careers, said Doug Walsh, marketing director of Hot Travel Jobs. As a result, Hot Travel Jobs recently added a directory of travel schools to its website. The directory (under “Resources” at www.hottraveljobs.com) includes the name, address, phone number, URL and a description of the school.
More than 60 are listed. Some are the new breed of virtual schools that offer all their training through webinars; others are community colleges, universities and other educational institutes with brick-and-mortar courses, Walsh said.
“I think what happened is that those [schools that] were just travel schools went away,” he said. “They couldn’t live on teaching travel alone. So, we’re seeing an increase in virtual schools, with basically no [physical location] required. And of course, there are still community colleges and universities offering travel programs.”
While ASTA and the Travel Institute have their own lists of travel schools on their websites, the difference is that those are recommended by those organizations, Walsh said. Hot Travel Jobs does not vet or endorse any of the schools on the list and is attempting to put together a comprehensive list. “We expect people to do their own due diligence,” he said.
The schools on the list range from one person offering personalized agent training to major universities. “There’s a plethora of different options and many people going in different directions with training,” Walsh said. “We’re just trying to make the big world out there more condensed and available in one place.”
Hot Travel Jobs, a division of the Travel Staffing Group, is the official job board for ASTA, OSSN and the Travel Institute. For more see www.hottraveljobs.com.