Quantcast
Career Profile: Tourism Promoter

Career Profile: Tourism Promoter

by Michelle Osei-Bonsu
Jobs People Do | JobsPeopleDo.com

Job Description
A tourism promoter is someone who promotes tourism for a specific area by developing and organizing many of the events and attractions that draw tourists to that location. The other responsibilities of a tourism promoter are quite extensive and require a lot of communication and partnership with businesses, the local community and the public.
Some of the other duties of a tourism promoter include:
• Promoting potential and functioning tourist attractions through various advertising campaigns
• Researching the overall approval rate of existing attractions in order to discover where improvements need to be made
• Using the views, interests, and history of the local people to influence the development of new attractions
• Advising local tourism businesses on what they can do to contribute to the overall tourism of the area
• Writing press releases and articles for tourism guides, magazines, and newsletters; organizing special events, holiday shows, exhibitions, and festivals (attendance is often required)

Salary and Conditions
The salaries of tourism promoters differ based on factors such as the location, the employer, and the amount of tourists that the location receives. However, the average starting salary of a tourism promoter is around $26,000-$30,000. After about two years of work, the salary may increase to about $35,000-$40,000 and after five years, $45,000-$58,000. In some cases, quality of work may positively or negatively influence the salary. Typically, a tourism promoter works a 37 hour week. Since the job requires a lot of involvement with planning, organizing, and attending social events, many additional hours may be spent working. The majority of work is done in an office or a similar environment. Sometimes the job calls for work to be done at various locations around the community or at specific attraction sites. Most tourism promoters work individually but it is not uncommon for them to work in teams.

Just like any other career, working as a tourism promoter has both advantages and disadvantages. Some of the benefits are being able to travel overseas to other tourist attractions, receiving invitations to exclusive exhibitions, and events, and receiving credit for new successful attractions. Some of the disadvantages are having to meet strict deadlines, dealing with criticism from the public and the media, working late nights, and having your presence mandatory at certain events. One of the main disadvantages has to do with the fact that a tourism promoter is not necessarily needed everywhere in the world. So a job in this career may be relatively difficult to find.

Education
A career as a Tourism Promoter is an option for all graduates and people with a diploma. However, achievements in certain subjects can significantly increase the probability of getting a job as a tourism promoter. Some of those subjects are tourism management, archive and museum studies, business management, journalism, modern languages, marketing, media studies, town planning, urban/rural regeneration, and environmental/sustainability studies.

Having extensive post-secondary education may not be as important for tourism promoters, but experience and communication skills play a major role in this type of job. Activities such as helping at social events, working with tourism-related businesses, and being familiar with local attractions can be considered experience.

If you think tourism promotion could be right for you, do more research on the field and start working toward your dream career!

Leave a comment!