Tourism Produces Employment at All Levels
By Joanne DiBona, Communications Director, jdibona@sdcvb.org
Most people would agree that tourism is a very good thing for San Diego--and they'd be right. Visitor spending reached more than $5.2 billion last year, placing tourism in third place among San Diego's major industries.
Then why is it that whenever there is talk of jobs and San Diego employment opportunities, tourism gets such a bad rap? It is immediately assumed that tourism generates only entry level, low paying service jobs with little opportunity for growth and advancement. The tourism industry is often stereotyped as the generator of jobs that contribute little to San Diego's economic prosperity. This is an unfounded and serious misconception.
While service jobs are plentiful in the tourism industry, as they are in other business sectors such as retail and health care, many people don't realize that there is also a wealth of professional, well-compensated positions within the visitor industry just begging to be filled by qualified applicants.
According to a recent travel employment study conducted by the Travel Industry Association (TIA), the travel and tourism industry ranks as one of the largest employers in 28 states, with the transportation sector, especially airlines, ranking among the highest paying sectors in the U.S. economy.
The study goes on to report that high-compensation management positions exist and continue to grow throughout the travel industry, be they in sales, marketing, operations, public relations, finance, human resources, etc. Employment in executive positions in travel and tourism is forecast to increase faster by the year 2006 than employment in the overall economy (29.3% vs 14.8%), according to TIA figures.
We are feeling this growth in San Diego, where demand for professionals to fill supervisory and management positions in the industry continues at record levels. Typically, San Diego hotels, restaurants, attractions and hospitality businesses conduct national job searches for management talent because of the lack of qualified individuals locally to fill these positions.
Many of our local schools and universities are aware of this need for qualified job candidates and have taken the lead in preparing our youth for professional careers in San Diego's visitor industry. Grooming for these visitor industry jobs begins as early as high school. Presently, Hilltop High School has an Academy of Travel and Tourism and three others--Mission Bay, San Diego and Morse high schools--offer an event and meeting planning curriculum.
San Diego State University now offers a four-year hospitality and tourism management degree program, as does United States International University.
Both the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and the California State University San Marcos offer tourism management certificate programs. Mira Costa College and Mesa Community College each boast an associate degree in hospitality and tourism.
There are also many opportunities for continuing education courses, geared to those who already work in the visitor industry and wish to enhance their education, or those already in the work force thinking about switching to a career in tourism. These include the University of San Diego's Event Management Certificate Program and UCSD Extension's Hospitality Management Certificate Program.
It simply stands to reason that if tourism offered only entry level jobs, there wouldn't be such an interest on the part of our educational community to provide courses and professional degree programs designed to prepare students for rewarding careers in the industry.
Let's talk a moment, too, about those entry level tourism service jobs often maligned by a few uninformed pundits. One has to admit that these jobs fill an important niche in our community. They provide employment for a whole strata of workers, some without a formal education, who would otherwise have no recourse but to fall back on government welfare programs to subsist. Tourism service jobs give them the opportunity to enter the workforce, learn valuable skills and earn an income. Many of these jobs are tipped positions which provide for greater earnings than commonly reported in workforce compensation studies.
In addition, these jobs often give young people their first business experience, providing them with basic workplace skills such as managing money, taking direction from superiors, working together as a team and keeping the customer happy. In San Diego County, more than 177,000 people owe their jobs to the visitor industry, working in fields directly related to tourism, including lodging, food service, attractions and transportation. In addition, many work in jobs not typically or directly associated with the industry. These may include the paper supplier who delivers products to area restaurants and hotels; the accounting firm that keeps the books for tourism-based establishments; the internet company whose employees design and manage web sites for dozens of local visitor industry businesses; the construction company driving steel piles on a hotel development site; the stage and lighting company that coordinates special events in the convention center.
As you can see, San Diego's vibrant tourism sector generates a wide variety of job opportunities throughout the employment spectrum, from entry-level to mid-management to executive leadership positions. Our visitor industry will continue to provide rewarding and enriching career ladders for San Diegans of every background and from all walks of life.
