17-year-old Porcha Gayle from Frankley has just completed a Level 2 in Travel and Tourism at South & City College Birmingham’s Longbridge campus (Bournville College).
Since finishing, she has already secured a job for the summer and possibly beyond to gain valuable customer service skills before making further plans for her future in travel.
Porcha’s ambition is to spend a few years working in a travel agency, helping people book holidays of a lifetime, and work her way up to becoming a manager.
Since the age of 14, after numerous visits to travel agencies with her parents as a child, Porcha has loved the idea of finding destinations and activities to realise people’s dream holidays.
When asked how she found studying with South & City College Birmingham, Porcha said, “The tutors are really friendly and treated everyone on the course like an adult and with respect. They always had time to explain everything clearly and offered any additional support needed. I’d recommend the college and the course to anyone looking to work in the travel industry.”
Porcha really enjoyed her course. Not only did she make good friends with the other students, but she also loved learning more about the travel and tourism sector, including the enormous variety of job roles studying this subject can open.
Many travel and tourism jobs come with some cool advantages too. Staff members may well get to experience their employer’s product or service for free or at heavily discounted rates.
The travel and tourism sector consists of many industries, from tourist boards, heritage sites, museums and tour operators and travel reps to passenger transport, including coach, waterways, aviation and rail and not forgetting accommodation, such as hotels, resorts and holiday parks.
Porcha has two holidays of her own already planned. First is a historical trip to Greece, taking in Athens and secondly, a birthday trip to Iceland in January for the aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights. These destinations feature highly on many people’s bucket lists of places to visit.
The college wishes Porcha the very best of luck with the next chapter of her life and hopes to catch up with her again over the coming years to find out how she’s doing.