“GT” Insight Bites: Is a tourism career a ticket or a trap?

February 23, 2026

Travel & tourism career: Ticket or trap? A Gemini-generated image.
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Is a career in travel & tour­ism a tick­et to the world or a trap? What is your hon­est advice to a young per­son enter­ing the industry today?

That’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight Bites question. 

Thanks to the four respond­ents writ­ing in from Canada and South­east Asia for their con­sidered thoughts on tour­ism and hos­pit­al­ity careers. 

And thanks to Dav­id Beir­man from Aus­tralia for his “GT” Insight BiteX on aca­demi­a’s rela­tion­ship with sustainability.

Have a thought to share? 

Respond in the com­ments at any time. Or write a Bite of your own. 

A career in tourism is a ‘golden ticket’ and ‘profound responsibility’

Pham Phi Anh, Deputy Head of Project Development — Fundraising Unit, Anh Duong Center, Vietnam

To the young pro­fes­sion­als enter­ing the industry today: Is tour­ism a tick­et to the world or a trap? The answer depends entirely on your intent and ethics.

Phạm Phi Anh
Read more by
Phạm Phi Anh

If you view tour­ism solely as a com­mod­ity for profit, it can indeed become a trap of super­fi­ci­al­ity and exploitation.

How­ever, if you enter this field as a stew­ard of com­munity and cul­ture, it becomes a golden tick­et to mean­ing­ful glob­al impact.

My hon­est advice is as follows:

  1. Pri­or­it­ise people over pixels: While digit­al skills are vital, the core of ‘good tour­ism’ is sin­cere con­cern for the res­id­ents of the des­tin­a­tions you promote.
  2. Seek trans­par­ency: Align your­self with organ­isa­tions that are open about their social and envir­on­ment­al impact. Avoid ‘spin’ and embrace hon­est storytelling.
  3. Learn the lan­guage of devel­op­ment: Under­stand that tour­ism is a tool for poverty alle­vi­ation and envir­on­ment­al protection.

A career in travel is a pro­found responsibility.

It is the chance to ensure that the ‘tick­et’ you hold bene­fits not just your own jour­ney, but the live­li­hoods and dig­nity of the com­munit­ies you visit.

Choose to be a prac­ti­tion­er of ‘good tour­ism’ from day one.

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Tourism is a ‘bifurcated world of hosts and guests’

K Michael Haywood, publisher, ‘Destinations-in-Action’, Canada

My chil­dren were giv­en the free­dom to carve their own path. None chose travel & tour­ism, yet each found them­selves in the bifurc­ated world of hosts and guests. In essence, and in the simplest of terms, that is what travel & tour­ism boils down to.

Prof K Michael Haywood
Read more by Prof K Michael Haywood

The prob­lem is that most people attrac­ted to the industry anti­cip­ate being in the priv­ileged pos­i­tion of simply being guests; mobile in their abil­ity to travel, see, and exper­i­ence the world. That is not a career path unless you want to become a travel writer or a vagabond.

While vaca­tion time provides travel oppor­tun­it­ies, that option is open to every­one. For the remain­ing 11 months of the year, the rest of us in tour­ism serve as hosts. We wel­come and choose to hon­our­ably serve oth­ers; oth­ers who choose to vis­it and “come from away”.

Those of us fas­cin­ated with tour­ism are, or can be, employed in so many capa­cit­ies and in a wide vari­ety of industry sec­tors. There are no lim­it­a­tions when it comes to interests, tal­ent, or per­son­al­ity. With so many choices and con­sid­er­able vari­ety, bore­dom should nev­er be an issue.

A career in tour­ism is neither a ‘tick­et to the world’ nor is it a ‘trap’. Rather, suc­cess is determ­ined only through per­son­al effort. Job hop­ping and career advance­ment are pre­val­ent so long as there is a desire to show up, over­come chal­lenges, and suc­ceed in ways notice­able to others.

Belief in your­self and the micro­cosm of rela­tion­ships at work, where you feel val­ued and add value; that is what is import­ant. It is nev­er about chas­ing atten­tion over con­nec­tion, prestige over pur­pose, or money over meaning.

The qual­ity of the best hosts can be summed up through their sin­cer­ity and the undi­vided atten­tion they give to caring and mat­ter­ing.

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Honest hospitality is not something a computer can do

Allan Michaud, Lodge Manager, Cardamom Tented Camp, Cambodia

Giv­en the rise of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) and the way it will wipe out so many white-col­lar jobs over the com­ing years, I think the tour­ism industry may be one of the few rel­at­ively safe sectors. 

Allan Michaud, Cardamom Tented Camp
Allan Michaud

I am talk­ing here about the ‘front end’ of tour­ism — the hotels and resorts — where­as I think pos­i­tions with travel agents are more likely to be taken over.

My job as a lodge man­ager is not some­thing a com­puter can do.

Per­son­ally, I enjoy the inter­ac­tion with guests and see­ing their amazement at the nat­ur­al world we give them an insight into. 

I am lucky in that the eco-resort I man­age is very spe­cial indeed. We pay for rangers to pro­tect a large area of forest, so we are really doing some­thing spe­cial here. I am pas­sion­ate about con­ser­va­tion, so run­ning an eco-lodge like this is a dream job. 

But it can be exhaust­ing at times and is pretty much 24/7, which can be dif­fi­cult for my fam­ily. This is not for every­one, but at the same time it can be very rewarding.

Cardamom Tented Camp logo

As I am not from this industry (I was a wild­life pho­to­graph­er and film­maker), my boss has sent me to a num­ber of high-end resorts in the region to gain some ideas as we devel­op Car­damom Ten­ted Camp. Travel has cer­tainly been a bonus.

My top advice to young­er people get­ting into the industry is that people are look­ing to enjoy genu­ine exper­i­ences. So, if you are selling exper­i­ences — or even your­self to a pro­spect­ive employ­er — do not exag­ger­ate. Do not lie. In my exper­i­ence, people like hon­esty. In every job inter­view I was always hon­est. I feel lies will only come back at you later.

Car­damom Ten­ted Camp is a val­ued “GT” Part­ner.

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If you love your job, it can be your ticket to the world

John Morris Williams, Group General Manager, Sanakeo Boutique Hotel & Flora by Sanakeo, Laos

John Morris Williams
Read more by John Mor­ris Wil­li­ams 

A tour­ism career is a tick­et to the world so long as you focus on your job, which you should love, and keep mov­ing towards your goals one step at a time.

Hos­pit­al­ity is a hard job, which is why you should love it. 

It can be refresh­ing, ever­chan­ging, and you can meet so many new friends. But it is not an ‘8 to 5’ job neces­sar­ily. There are many shifts and vari­ations in work­ing times.

Put the effort in from day one, grow into more respons­ible roles, and you too can see the world!

I have, and I do not regret one thing.

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“GT” Insight BiteX (‘X’ is up to you)

The “Good Tour­ism” Blog offers a great oppor­tun­ity to any travel & tour­ism stake­hold­er who wishes to express them­self in writ­ing for the bene­fit of “GT’s” open-minded readers. 

To fea­ture in the next “GT” Insight Bites com­pil­a­tion, send no more than 300 words (300 words or few­er (</=300 words)) on any tour­ism-related idea or con­cern you may have. You may, indeed you are encour­aged, to include links to sup­port­ing ref­er­ences in your copy. 

Don’t use AI. if you lack con­fid­ence in writ­ing in plain Eng­lish, “GT’s” pub­lish­er will per­son­ally help with copy edit­ing. “GT” doesn’t judge. “GT” publishes.

Send your “GT” Insight Bite and pic­ture to [email protected].

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Academia’s drift from reality on sustainable tourism

David Beirman, Adjunct Fellow, University of Technology Sydney, Australia

It is impossible for tour­ism aca­dem­ics to come togeth­er without sus­tain­able tour­ism being the dom­in­ant top­ic of dis­cus­sion. You would be for­giv­en for think­ing that aca­dem­ics inven­ted the term and the concept. They did not.

Dr David Beirman
Read more by
Dr Dav­id Beirman

Sus­tain­able tour­ism is import­ant in all its core ele­ments: social, envir­on­ment­al, eco­nom­ic, and ethical. 

Unfor­tu­nately, many aca­dem­ics are so out of touch with real­ity that they often fail to give cred­it for the hard and pro­duct­ive work the industry has done to address these com­plex issues.

I was recently involved in a polite exchange of views on Linked­In with some Scand­inavi­an tour­ism schol­ars who were berat­ing the industry for its ‘lack of action’ on emissions.

While I, along with every glob­al tour­ism industry asso­ci­ation, fully agree that we need to cut emis­sions wherever pos­sible, we must also acknow­ledge pro­gress along that and oth­er sus­tain­ab­il­ity metrics.

Pro­gress has been impress­ive in the accom­mod­a­tion sec­tor, avi­ation, the expan­sion of high-speed rail, elec­tric-powered land trans­port, and even hybrid wind-powered cruise ships. For avi­ation, the reduc­tion of fuel con­sump­tion is both a sus­tain­ab­il­ity issue and a fin­an­cial and oper­a­tion­al one.

Good des­tin­a­tion man­agers are work­ing to dis­perse tour­ists. This has pos­it­ive implic­a­tions for social and fin­an­cial sus­tain­ab­il­ity by spread­ing the vis­it­or eco­nomy around.

I have heard from some aca­dem­ics that we should have more ‘vir­tu­al tour­ism’ and less actu­al tour­ism. The pub­lic would hate this. It is a recipe to ruin eco­nom­ies and remove the sens­ory exper­i­ence of real tourism.

To those aca­dem­ics who want to kill the joy and bene­fits of tour­ism, I sug­gest they only travel by foot, horse, bicycle, hang-glider, or sail­ing boat, and stay in a tent.

They can travel well this way, but it will lim­it their oppor­tun­ity to speak at inter­na­tion­al tour­ism con­fer­ences and lec­ture every­one else about sus­tain­able tourism.

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This is an open invit­a­tion to travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers from any back­ground to share their thoughts in plain Eng­lish with a glob­al industry audience.

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If you think the tour­ism media land­scape is bet­ter with “GT” in it, then please … 

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Is a career in travel & tour­ism a tick­et to the world or a trap? A Gem­ini-gen­er­ated image. “GT” added the words.

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