The expanding world of a career in hospitality

Danny Bryer, Protea Hotels by Marriott

One such challenge is travel and hospitality - there are careers that offer the chance to grow professionally across a number of disciplines so that the experience becomes one of expanding one's worldview while gaining skills that will serve you for a lifetime. Essentially, the world is your oyster.

Expanding list of career opportunities

You can enjoy training programmes designed to accelerate your growth and magnify your capabilities. There are endless opportunities in an evolving professional tourism market not limited to guest-facing roles, including advertising, marketing and social media, graphic design, interior design, financial management and accounting, events coordination, data analysis, IT and other positions - reflecting the richness of digital influence and the diversification of a career in hospitality.

From entry-level positions to senior roles, the opportunities are expansive. The range of jobs indicates the extent to which tourism is a professional career choice that can incorporate all the facets of corporate-level workplace development.

South Africans are excelling in the local market as local ambassadors of a global brand. Of course, Protea Hotels by Marriott is just one of many in the travel and hospitality trade providing the opportunity for locals to become world-class professionals, competing with their colleagues from around the world in the local context, proving that despite coming from the bottom of the continent, we’re capable of delivering world-class service across a variety of professional disciplines.

Wanderlust satisfied with a salary cheque

A secondary benefit is that you may get to have international work experience, perhaps even settling temporarily or permanently in another country to work with like-minded individuals.

You don’t have to limit yourself to one company with an international chain of businesses. Tourism, in general, can help those with the desire to travel see that desire realised with work opportunities that are making this a reality – wanderlust satisfied with a salary cheque.

Enver Duminy, CEO of Cape Town Tourism concurs: “Within our organisation, we’re dedicated to promoting the city as a destination, so part of this includes visiting source markets and trade fairs to ensure that word about our destination gets out across the world. In the process, our team members get to travel and meet like-minded people. Besides our internal travel opportunities, our members such as tour operators and companies also ensure that their offerings are being marketed globally. It’s common for the big tourism booking companies to send their teams on trips to experience destinations so that their sales efforts are more authentic,” he states.

The job market is evolving; it’s easy to be pessimistic when you look at how the economic climate is doing at home, but when you look to local companies offering global excellence, you start to see that the world is actually within reach right here and that a career in hospitality can be an enriching, life-enhancing choice.