Every travel industry job comes with its own tradeoffs in pay, schedule, and travel, and some careers are more accessible to beginners than others. This guide walks through 12 common opportunities, from the most flexible to the most specialized.
1. Travel advisors
If you’re looking for high flexibility and earnings potential, travel advising is a strong choice. Travel advisors use their passion for planning travel to create and coordinate custom itineraries for their clients, including accommodations, ground transfers, on-the-ground activities.
The value of a travel advisor is in the service and expertise: They help their clients get the most out of their trips with expert suggestions, concierge-level service to manage bookings and handle issues, and exclusive experiences or perks clients can’t get on their own.
“I love being a travel advisor because it truly doesn’t feel like work,” says Fora advisor Danielle Fisher. “I get to help others while doing something I’m passionate about and enjoy. I also love the flexibility: I can be a travel advisor, but also a stay-at-home mom with my two toddlers.”
The tradeoff is that there’s a steep learning curve and it takes time to build your client list, but a good travel host agency can walk you through the basics. You don’t need a license or degree to become an advisor, but will need to dedicate yourself to initial training and building industry knowledge to succeed.
Read our guide to becoming a travel advisor
2. Airport staff & flight attendants
Airport staff and flight attendants are essential to the travel industry. Many entry-level positions are available with a high school diploma, with avionic mechanics and some administrative staffers being the main exceptions. Flight attendants often stay overnight in new cities before returning to their home airports, making this career a good option if you enjoy solo travel.
The downside is that airport staff schedules are often demanding, as are those of flight attendants. Early mornings and late nights are common, and you don’t always get to choose where you work from or travel to earlier in your career.
3. Hospitality professionals
Hospitality professionals, such as hotel staff and general managers, facilitate hotel operations like reservations and housekeeping. Guest-facing roles like concierges and customer service employees don’t do much traveling themselves, but more senior employees, like sales managers, often visit new places for conferences and other industry events.
Most entry-level jobs in the travel industry’s hospitality sector offer comparable pay and requirements to other entry-level jobs. However, many luxury hotels offer more competitive salaries to attract employees who can provide white-glove service.
4. Cruise staff
Cruise line jobs mirror roles in both the airline and hospitality fields. If you’re comfortable being on the water for weeks or months at a time, it can be an exciting way to experience a wide range of destinations.
However, many entry-level positions are among the most demanding jobs in the travel industry, as workers stay in shared cabins and often have difficult schedules. Compensation varies widely and depends on the home country of the cruise line.
Higher-ranked positions—cruise directors, performers, engineers, captains—are often paid well, but these roles also require specific experience and education.
5. Private charter staff
Private charters are similar to cruises, but on a much smaller, more personalized scale. Instead of a massive cruise ship, you’re typically working on a yacht and serving one or more families. Working for a private charter often comes with higher pay alongside a higher expectation for the level of service you provide to travelers.
Experience requirements vary by charter company, but many private charter jobs have similar requirements to hospitality professions or require a working knowledge of boating.
6. Travel writers & bloggers
Travel writers blend their creative skills with their passion for exploration. It can regularly give you chances to research and highlight new destinations and suppliers. There’s also a wide range of niches to explore, and opportunities for both full-time and freelance work.
The downside is that compensation can be unpredictable. Some have lucrative careers as full-time travel writers, but freelancers or bloggers have less consistent income that depends on assignment availability or brand contracts.
7. Travel photographers
Similar to travel writers, travel photographers often work either full-time or as freelancers who contract with various outlets in the industry. For example, hotels and cruise lines hire photographers to showcase their amenities and design for their websites and social media.
The most lucrative work requires extensive professional experience and expensive photography equipment.
8. Travel influencers
Social media influencers are marketers who provide exposure for a variety of products and services, including those in the travel industry. Like photographers, an influencer might contract with a hotel to highlight certain aspects of the property.
You don’t really need any prior experience to become an influencer, but it’s not an easy career to break into or maintain. It takes significant work to achieve and retain the following needed to be successful.
9. Tour guides & operators
Helping travelers better understand a destination you’re enthusiastic about is exciting and rewarding. Tour guides highlight an area or specific attractions, or focus on an angle like a local history tour, a food tour in Venice, haunted tours in New Orleans, or luxury tours of Egypt.
Becoming a tour guide often requires minimal prior experience, though you need to be able to learn your subject well. However, most tour operators are seasonal and tend to work part-time, unless you operate in a popular destination with a steady stream of travelers.
10. Sommeliers
While not all sommeliers have ties to the travel industry, tourism-heavy wine regions like Napa Valley or Tuscany frequently run wine tastings and tours.
However, it’s difficult to break into the wine industry. You’ll need significant industry experience and deep wine knowledge to compete for desirable roles. Entry-level roles often have lower pay, which can be challenging in high-cost-of-living areas where many wineries are based.
11. Designers & architects
Designers and architects in the travel industry are some of the more exclusive and demanding roles, both in terms of competition for travel-focused opportunities and the specific skills required. These professionals design hotels and other sites like museums, performance spaces, or retail complexes. Some hotel brands hire in-house designers, while many work with individuals on a contract or freelance basis.
Breaking into the industry usually requires significant prior experience and education to become successful and build a career with a travel focus.
12. Pilots
Becoming a pilot is exciting and rewarding, and travel is built into the career.
However, piloting has some of the most rigorous education and experience requirements among travel industry jobs. Pilots typically attend specialized schools and have minimum flight hours requirements, sometimes on top of obtaining a traditional degree. Commercial pilots have strict licensing requirements and positions are competitive.
How to get a job in the travel industry
Each of the careers above has unique requirements, but a few things will make you a stronger candidate no matter which job on this list you’re after.
Strong communication skills: Nearly every job on this list requires working closely with people, whether travelers, colleagues, or both. Being a clear, confident communicator goes a long way.
An existing network: Networking is often how people land their first opportunity in the field, and it matters even more for jobs that don’t require formal experience to start, like tour guiding or hospitality, where a referral can put you ahead of other applicants. For other roles, like travel advising, your network is also valuable for growing your business.
Language skills: While not required, basic fluency in another language can set you apart or help you qualify for specific opportunities.
Frequently asked questions
How does a travel agent career differ from the others?
Travel advisors enjoy career paths that fit their strengths and come with built-in flexibility. Remote travel agents work at their own pace and don’t need specialized degrees or training to begin. At Fora, we provide all the travel agent education and training you need.
Is a tourism degree worth it?
It depends on the field. Hospitality jobs benefit from a tourism or hospitality degree, but it won’t do much for someone aiming to become an airline pilot. You don’t need a specialized degree to become a travel advisor.
Which travel industry job pays the best?
There’s no single answer. Pilots, cruise directors, and senior designers are all paid well, but each requires long-term, specialized training or education to get there. Travel advising offers a different upside: There’s no license or degree required to start, and top earners set their own ceiling based on how much they book.
Do travel agents get free trips?
Not exactly. Advisors are sometimes invited to hotel site inspections and familiarization (Fam) trips to experience a property or destination firsthand, which helps them sell it more convincingly to clients. But those trips, particularly Fams, are very different from a free vacation and involve long working days.
