TOURISM JOBS

After the hotel management courses which was the first step towards innovative courses, the Karnataka state will take the first step towards bringing tourism as an academic discipline. Does this belong to arts or science, Management or Professional category of education, it is a matter to be discussed. But as things stand now for Karnataka state will become the first state in the country to offer Master programme in Tourism Administration.

Mysore Maharaja's Palace (Pic: Kiran Kumar)

The first tourism administration programme is available and the SBRR Mahajana First Grade College of Mysore will open this programme this year starting from July. According to the head of the department of Tourism Administration K.S. Nagapathi, Karnataka had ample scope for such a course particularly in Karnataka where tourism was fast developing into a mainstream commercial activity. Karnataka is also going to be one of the top centres for a host of tourism related activities including the diverse fields such as wild life, coastal, medical, educational, recreation, historical, shopping, culinary and weather based tourism. The coastal areas have special features like adventure and short cruises.

The world figures for tourism speaks volumes about the scope for tourism development. About 3.5 percent of world population travel internationally. The World Travel and Tourism Council maintains that about 700 million international tourists with a tourism receipt of 750 Billion US dollars have toured the world in 2005. The World Tourism Organisation the western tourists are enchanted by the tourist spots in the Asian countries, particularly China and India. The world tourism growth was expected to record 4.5 to 5 percent per annum during 2007 and 2011. India was expected to return a growth of 9.7 percent per annum which was almost double the world average.

Kadri Kambala (Pic: RK Bhat)

The total business transacted in this sector was about 6 trillion US dollar in 2005 and constituted 3.6 percent of the global GDP. It has given employment to 235 million people and 10 million jobs are added every year. But in India there are hardly any qualified tourism experts who is professionally trained, which makes the educational courses in tourism management all the more important.

To interface the practical tourism with academic inputs the government of Karnataka Tourism department and the higher education department have designated a chain of five institutions in five different regions of Karnataka to impart education in tourism with emphasis on experiential inputs. Tourism Secretary I.M.Vittala Murthy and Commissioner of Tourism G. Kumar Naik have taken initiative in giving the education a practical orientation in the state.

Hampi Temple (Pic: Pradeep Ballal)

Speaking to Mangalorean.com Prof. Nagapathi told that the five year intensive course was the first of its kind in the country on the Tourism educational circuit. He told the students need to know every aspect right from tour guiding to dining in the finest hotels, motels, palaces, resorts and even in dhabas. Tour planning, guiding, scheduling, transport, information and facilitating are some of the aspects and each of them could take the students to various places even to foreign countries.

Career opportunities:

Tourism graduates and post graduates are employable in tourism department of the government and government of Karnataka, employable in Travel agencies, transport, HRD firms, Airlines, hospitality industries and good prospects for those who want to be entrepreneurs.