Travel and Tourism (9395)

This post is also available in: English (Английский) Кыргызча

We are not currently teaching this A-Level course. However we provide Travel & Tourism for IGCSE.

See course description for IGCSE Travel and Tourism (0417)

Syllabus Overview

The syllabus ‘Travel and Tourism’ provides students with a good understanding of the Tourism, Travel and Hospitality industry.

Working in tourism is serious business and far from a never ending vacation. However it offers great career potential, both as an entrepreneur and an employee.

Tourism and Travel offers great opportunities for career and is guaranteed to keep your job interesting and challenging. In tourism you work closely with people and need a high service orientation. Meeting many interesting people and giving them a great holiday experience can be very rewarding.

Since the independence of the Kyrgyz Republic, experts have noticed a huge potential in the tourism sector for this country. But while a lot has been developed, Kyrgyzstan is still behind expectations in this sector. There are many reasons for this, however one is that not enough people in Kyrgyzstan are trained in tourism as a business. This limits the number of qualified entrepreneurs and managers in this sector, developing new attractive tourism offers and marketing them effectively – both locally and abroad.

Tourism is a network and infrastructure business

Tourism is way more complex then it seems at first. Having a few good offers in not enough to make an area attractive for tourists. For a region to effectively earn money with tourism a complete network, infrastructure and cooperation needs to be established.

To give an example, let’s look at what tourist expect from an attractive ski resort and how one attractive service feeds the potential of other related services:

Good hotels and guesthouses will get more guests to the resort. An attractive skiing resort will make guests stay longer and return. An unattractive resort will do the opposite, no matter how good the hotel was.

Only guests that are staying over night will have dinner at the local restaurants or use other services offered around the ski resort.

Offers for children, like Ski-Kindergarten will attract more families. Child care services will allow the parents to use above mentioned restaurants in the evening.

Skiing and Snow boarding courses train beginners to enjoy winter sports. Only active skiers will rent skiing equipment.

Interesting events make tourist stay longer and also feed into that value chain.

To build the necessary infrastructure large investments are needed, which need to be professionally managed, e.g. lift infrastructure, tracks and access roads.

What this short and simplified example shows: Tourism is a complex business that requires successful players to have a deep understanding of different types of tourism, different tourist groups and their expectation, how to implement services and last but not least, how to market them effectively to attract customers.

The Cambridge Travel & Tourism course is effectively a “Business Studies” course, completely focused around Tourism and Hospitably. This makes is highly relevant for Kyrgyzstan and allows for this course to be less abstract, but work with specific applications all relating to the industry. Our course focuses on opportunities in Kyrgyzstan, but also looks at the situation abroad. Students learn by comparing and acquire the ability to understand specific situations and develop unique ideas and concepts.

Cambridge Course: Travel & Tourism

The course looks at four key concepts behind the industry:

  • Global and growing
  • Change and development
  • Customer focus
  • Sustainability and responsibility

The course analyzes how the market is structured, what different customer groups expect, how it is implemented and how effective marketing works.

Career Perspective

Jobs directly related to your degree include:

  • Airline officer
  • Holiday resort representative
  • Hotel manager
  • Tour manager
  • Tourism officer
  • Tourist information centre manager
  • Travel agency manager

Jobs where your degree would be useful include:

  • Conference centre manager
  • Customer service manager
  • Event manager
  • Marketing executive
  • Sales executive
  • Outdoor activities/education manager

Read more about «What Can I Become if I Study Tourism and Hospitality at an International University?» at masterportals.com.

Beyond the syllabus

Cambridge International A Level Travel & Tourism provides a great foundation for the study of travel and tourism at a college or university in these fields:

Alternatively an apprenticeship program can be pursued, e.g. in the hospitality industry.

Why choose Cambridge International AS & A Level Travel & Tourism?

About the syllabus

Through the study of the syllabus candidates:

  • appreciate the scale and importance of the travel and tourism industry
  • learn that the travel and tourism industry is dynamic in nature and how the industry responds to change, e.g. external factors such as changing consumer needs and expectations and developments in information technology
  • recognise the positive and negative impacts the industry may have on people, environments and economies.

Key concepts

The key concepts on which this syllabus is built are set out below. These key concepts can help teachers think about how to approach each syllabus topic in order to encourage learners to make links between topics and develop a deep overall understanding of the subject. The teaching support package gives teachers guidance on integrating the key concepts into their teaching. See page 7 for more information on our teacher support.

  1. Global and growing
    The travel and tourism industry is a global industry. Changes in political and socioeconomic circumstances and technological developments contribute to the continuing growth of the travel and tourism industry and its importance to many national economies.
  2. Change and development
    A key feature of the industry is its dynamic nature. The only constant is change. Exciting new enterprises, products or services are often developed in response to economic, political, social or technological change.
  3. Customer focus
    Travel and tourism organisations provide products, services and facilities to meet customers’ needs. In order for travel and tourism providers to be successful, they must adopt a strong customer focus. This means they must really understand who their customers are and how they can best meet their needs.
  4. Sustainability and responsibility
    The travel and tourism industry has close links to destinations and so has a vested interest in ensuring environmental and sociocultural impacts are managed. Responsible management means that any developments must maximise the positive, and minimise the negative impacts of tourism.