The Tourism Academy has been very busy in the late part of Term 1 and into Term 2. Our Year 12s successfully completed their first 1-day course at ITC, International Travel College, all gaining 2 credits for Customer Service. As part of this course there were guest speakers in from local attractions and 4 of our students were lucky enough to win vouchers for Jet Boating on the Waitemata Harbour.

Leti Sale, one of our ex-students and a Flight Attendant for Air New Zealand came in and spoke to our classes. The students were fascinated to hear about the recruitment process for Air New Zealand and also about the strict rules around the colour of the make-up pallet.

Term 2 has kicked off with the Year 13 Academy attending the 2-day Short Course Tourism at ITC. As I type they are enjoying Jet Boating out on the Waitemata Harbour and looking at how these type of companies promote themselves within the Auckland Tourism market.

Two of our Year 12 students, Angelie Prasad and Samantha Naidu had the opportunity to attend a Disney Taster Day at the New Zealand School of Tourism. They enjoyed mingling with students from other schools, hearing all about life working for Disney and also meeting up with some of Massey’s past students who attend the college. All our Year 12 Academy students will shortly be attending an Aviation Course at the New Zealand School of Tourism.

Our Year 12s have also just begun their internship on Front Reception. Gaining first- hand experience of telephone and face to face customer service. The feedback from the Reception team has been really positive.

We are also excited to have added ITC’s Tourism Career Expo and an Air New Zealand career talk to our programme for this term. ITC are coming to talk about career pathways within the Tourism Industry and the Air New Zealand morning will cover various careers in many different areas of the company. Both of these are new initiatives for the companies and valuable experiences for our students.