Where can travel lead ?
An advanced level qualification in travel can lead directly to
Higher education, Post A-Level apprenticeships, Employment.
Employment
The industry is tremendously varied and employers range in size from international household-name to small family-run businesses.
There’s also scope to set up your own business, though would-be entrepreneurs are likely to be best off working in the industry to gain experience and understanding before striking out on their own.
This is an industry that offers opportunities to school leavers at both 16 and 18 as well as to graduates and those with postgraduate qualifications.
Whether you want to start earning or work your way up or pursue higher education and relevant further study, you should be able to find a route into employment that will suit you.
Opportunities can be categorised into:
Leisure - betting and gambling (e.g. casinos and horseracing), culture and heritage (e.g. museums, galleries and heritage sites) and leisure and entertainment (e.g. cinemas, bowling alleys, arcades, holiday/summer camps and theme parks).
Sport - coaching and performance analysis, facilities management, outdoor activities, sport and leisure centre management, sports development, sports event management and disability sport.
You can work in a range of environments, in both head office and front-of-house roles. If you have great people and customer service skills, play to your strengths in a hands-on, customer-facing role. If you'd prefer to work behind the scenes, graduates are needed in a variety of head-office functions including administration, finance, IT, marketing, HR and sales. If you're up to the challenge of combining the two then general management jobs are widely available.
University
Degrees in this area tend to be vocational and often include placements, so they typically have strong connections to the industry.
As a sports graduate, you’d be joining the ranks of Alistair Brownlee, Victoria Pendleton and José Mourinho. The areas you could work in include:
academic research
personal training
physiotherapy
professional coaching
sport management
sport nutrition
sport psychology
strength and conditioning.
You could also go down a non-scientific sport route, such as teaching PE, sport journalism, marketing or advertising, or youth work (eg working as a sport development officer in a local community). In some cases, such as journalism, you might need to take a relevant postgraduate course. To become a PE teacher, you will need to take a teacher training course such as the one-year Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE).
There are also plenty of sectors that recruit graduates from all degree disciplines including:
Apprenticeship
Sport and fitness covers all aspects of sport and recreation, from professional sport to exercise instruction—including work in leisure centres, gyms, swimming pools, stadiums, and private sports clubs, as well as a range of outdoor activities.
Sport is about more than just teams and competition—it’s all forms of physical activity that improve physical fitness and mental wellbeing. Sport can even help people form social relationships. Millions of people enjoy sports at community leisure centres, private health clubs, outward bound centres, and after-school clubs—and all of these need keen and motivated staff to make sure things run smoothly and safely, as well as to instruct, inspire, and keep an eye on people.
There are multiple options in this sector. As a community activator coach, you could promote, deliver and coach fun, inclusive and engaging activities that help whole communities to change their behaviour, and adopt and keep to a physically active lifestyle. There are also apprenticeships focusing on particular sports, working at leisure centres and coaching personal fitness.
Alternatively, as an outdoor activity instructor, you could supervise and guide children and adults in activities and pastimes such as canoeing, sailing, climbing, surfing, cycling, hillwalking, archery, bushcraft, rock pooling, geology, plant identification, or habitat or wildlife walks.
