From finding a mentor to developing a personal brand, newcomers to travel received career building tips from highflyers in the industry during the ITT Future You sessions at World Travel Market London, the world’s largest English-language travel trade show, which attracted over 43,000 visitors last week.

Jamie-Lee Abtar, brand marketing manager for Not in the Guidebooks spoke about how she used LinkedIn to target SMEs and was selected as one of travel industry magazine TTG’s 30 Under 30 Tomorrow’s Travel leaders, which gave her a like-minded cohort.

Paying it back, she more recently worked with social enterprise and mentorship program Women in Travel CIC during the pandemic and launched podcast In the Travel Know to talk about career progression.

She advised newcomers: “Master your market, follow the travel industry magazines and platforms… download [travel industry association] reports… so when you’re speaking to people you can confidently talk about the area you’re interested in.”

She added they should find a mentor, build a “personal brand” talking about aspects of travel that interest them online and in person and “network, network, network”.

It was a theme picked up by Jo Rzymowska, founder of Jovolution, who said in her multifaceted career, “pretty much all of my moves have come through networking.”

She added: “Customer service is the winning formula you all need to think about if you’re going to work in the industry.”

In a panel discussion on Bridging the Gap Between Education and Industry, easyJet Holidays’ senior strategy manager Louie Davis advised jobseekers to build awareness of the factors influencing travel on a global and political scale.

Speaking about opportunities he commented: “There will be jobs that exist for tomorrow that don’t exist today,” adding that AI and sustainability were the two big themes “that will define the industry in the coming years.”

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