The future of Aotearoa New Zealand's tourism industry is looking brighter with confirmation that Tourism has been accepted as a new NCEA Achievement Standard subject from 2023.
Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA) was delighted that the Ministry of Education decided to include Tourism as one of the new Achievement Standard subjects available for learners across the New Zealand Curriculum levels 2 and 3.
“TIA has long advocated that Tourism should be taught in this context to educate learners on the deeper complexities of the tourism industry, and help to attract more pupils to the diverse and inspiring careers that tourism offers,” TIA chief executive Chris Roberts said.
TIA supported the Tourism Teachers Association NZ in its campaign to get Tourism included as an Achievement Standard subject and appreciated the work it has done.
“It has been a perfect triangle of communication and support between secondary tourism teachers, tertiary tourism educators and industry which now enables secondary tourism students in the future to be able to study tourism as a subject and the tourism industry as a whole in a modern, relevant and comprehensive way. The TTA-NZ Executive committee is delighted and remains committed to supporting the development of Tourism Achievement Standards," said Tourism Teachers Association chairperson Julie McDougall.
Roberts said although tourism had been deeply affected by the pandemic, the industry would recover. Tourism employers around the country would require more of the right people with the right knowledge and skills. TIA considered that including Tourism in the Achievement Standard framework at schools would raise the status of tourism as a subject and properly educate New Zealand's future workforce.
Tourism offers numerous roles that require critical, innovative, analytical and creative thinking. People often think of tourism employment in terms of frontline teams, but behind these teams are well-trained and qualified people in a range of roles including digital tourism marketers, yield managers, transport managers, human resource personnel, operations managers, general managers and chief executives.
