Abstract:

The contemporary multifaceted travel and tourism industry is a highly dynamic field of human activity that has been developing into a leading industry of every national economy in the globalizing world of today. The success of the global tourism industry largely depends on all the PESTEL factors temporarily increasing or decreasing in their significance, with one factor preserving the high importance regardless of any changes in the other factors – i.e. the high professional and qualification level of the tourist personnel. But the high significance of this factor is one side of the precious coin, with the other side involving high responsibility and high requirements of the employers.

In the highly competitive market of today, travel and tourism professionals have to prove their worth to customers in order to persuade them to pay for their services and develop their loyalty for future collaboration. Among other aspects of tourism professionals’ interaction with customers, the paper considers the qualities and competencies of tourism professionals that are highly appreciated and most valued by customers, increasing the level of their trust and loyalty.
Today many professional bodies offer membership or certification assuring that both are valuable in demonstrating one’s expertise and enhance one’s status within the field of tourism and hospitality. Their list includes but is not limited to the Confederation of Tourism and Hospitality, the Institute of Hospitality, the Hospitality Guild and many others located in the US, UK, and other European countries. They offer access to training, events and qualifications, opportunities to network and build contacts, chances to keep up with the latest industry news and the like. But their requirement to potential members are quite high and keep increasing.

For instance, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) offering Travel and Tourism Professional (TTP) designations, promises that this designation will help open doors to any professional working in a travel agency, hotel or another area of the tourism and hospitality industries. To be eligible to be certified with a TTP designation, a professional engaged in the travel, hotel, transportation industries or government authorities in the sphere of tourism has to comply with the following requirement: professional education, relevant full-time experience (from 3 to 6 years), continued employment in a travel and tourism function, continuous maintenance of knowledge and skills, contribution to the profession as a guest speaker to a travel and tourism audience, recent attendance to local or global industry events within the last two years, subscription to relevant IATA industry publications, recent membership in an industry association in the last two years, and active promotion of the IATA Professional Designation Program to attract new members.
On analysing the IATA’s requirements to applicants for TTP designations, we can see that besides promoting itself and earning money, it aims at promoting lifelong learning and continuous professional development of tourism industry professionals and development of their soft skills increasingly required in the world of today – presenting skills, skills of communicating, associating, promoting, etc.

Therefore, professional training for tourism industry has been facing major challenges, which are not so easy to meet. And in its turn it challenges University professionals that have to be increasingly flexible in their strive for improving their academic programmes, adapting them for the needs and requirements of the fast-changing tourism industries and the challenging professional environment. The paper analyzes the successful experience of several European Universities showing particularly high flexibility and strive for academic perfection.

Keywords:

increasing competition, professional personality, professional development, required skills and competencies.