Seeing the Sights in Hospitality and Tourism Careers
“Dude, look at the size of this room,” exclaimed Grade 10 Eagle River Secondary student Hannah Gordon as she walked towards the open bay windows in an executive suite at the Prestige Harbourfront Resort.
Gordon and 16 others from Salmon Arm Secondary, JL Jackson Secondary and ERS expressed their awe when walking through some of the nicer hotel suites in the 120-room facility on Salmon Arm’s Waterfront. The students spent the day learning about the tourism and hospitality industry in an initiative between SD83 Careers and Go2HR, a human resources and health and safety organization for B.C.’s tourism industry.
Students started the day learning about the industry. They discovered over 42-thousand people in the Thompson-Okanagan work in the tourism and hospitality sector with over 330-thousand people work province-wide. It is believed that another 70-thousand jobs will be created in B.C.’s tourism sector by the end of 2025. Considering 30 percent of the tourism and hospitality sector is comprised of 15-24 year olds, there will be a need for more young people to try and fill those jobs.
From there, an Associate Professor from Thompson Rivers University explained to students the diploma and degree pathways into the tourism industry. Dave Carter told the group that not only is tourism a business and a huge global industry but that it is also a social, economic and environmental phenomenon that deserves study. Students then got a tour of the host hotel, followed by lunch while four local tourism leaders from White Lake Cabins, Shuswap Boat Rentals, Timber Shuswap and Quaaout Lodge talked about how they got into the industry, their triumphs and challenges and other interesting stories. In the afternoon, students were taken to DeMille’s Farm Market where they received a tour of the store, its back-of-store operations and its petting farm.
If you have any ideas for interesting tours to showcase the Shuswap labour market, please reach out to SD83 Career Education Coordinator George Richard via text or phone at 778-824-1188 or you can email grichard@sd83.bc.ca.