Looking for Jobs in Sustainable Tourism?

Before you consider specific positions or organisations, be sure to take some time to define what you want to do (your passions and interests), what you are good at (your skills and competencies), and how and where you can combine those to contribute to creating positive solutions.

A deep-dive on your own interests and abilities will help you focus your efforts in finding meaningful opportunities. Ask, for example, what aspects of your current or previous role have you most enjoyed? And what parts of your responsibilities have you particularly excelled at?

Think of not just numbers, like fundraising goals met or new clients gained, but also stories that will help you connect with your strengths. What are some of the most memorable comments and kudos you’ve received from your co-workers? Which thank-you notes and positive testimonials have given you a real sense of accomplishment?

Based on your reflections, think of a few concrete areas of responsibilities (they don’t need to be tied to specific roles or positions) that you can highlight as your strengths. For example, coordinating project teams with members from various backgrounds and interests and ensuring that you stay on track. Executing effective and targeted communication in crisis situations. Or, achieving broad stakeholder buy-ins on sustainability goals with potentially contentious trade-offs.

Knowing your strengths well is a great starting point for exploring opportunities that will benefit from your contributions.

You don't necessarily need to have a job role that focuses specifically on sustainability in order to be engaged in sustainable tourism.

While positions such as sustainability managers and ESG coordinators are critical to tourism organisations’ sustainability journeys, so are all other aspects of tourism operations. So keep this important piece of career advice in mind as you seek opportunities for working in sustainable tourism: “Do what you are good at, and make sustainability a part of it.”

Within your specific areas of expertise - whether it’s destination marketing, product development, customer service or project management - you can incorporate a focus on sustainability, by combining your sustainability knowledge with your industry experiences and professional insights.

To find concrete examples of sustainability-focused roles and jobs that incorporate sustainability, start with your current professional networks and actively seek out opportunities to learn more about your contacts and what they do.

Maybe you are connected (with someone who is connected) with someone who currently has your dream job. Follow and learn about what they do and, if possible, reach out to learn more. Take any (large and small) steps you can take to get closer to making a dream position like theirs a reality for you.

Or, maybe you can find new ideas and inspiration for new kinds of job roles and positions that you haven’t yet considered. Learn from how they are making sustainability a key part of their work (within and outside of tourism-related fields) and apply the lessons in your own professional development context.

Get the word out about the fact that you are actively looking for new opportunities. Many of your colleagues and professional contacts are most likely more than happy and willing to help, but they first need to know how they can help.

LinkedIn is there for professional networking, so that’s a great place to share your goals and requests for help. It may be an intimidating thought to put yourself out there, but asking for help doesn’t need to be just about saying “I need a job”. Make sure to ask concretely and clearly for what you need and how that can help you get closer to your goals. For example, “help me connect with mentors with specific experiences in ___”, “looking for recommendations on quality networking events in ___”.

In addition to asking for advice and suggestions, you can ask some of your close connections to help “boost” your post for visibility. As most of us know from our own experience, helping others makes us happy, so lending a hand where we can is an integral part of networking and being part of a community.  

Keeping in mind that you are also a member of your communities, as you ask for help and share about your search, be sure to also continue offering your support to others wherever possible. Think of ways you can be there for your industry peers and support their efforts, which can start with small steps such as responding to surveys, commenting on their posts, and helping spread the word about their services.   

Actively engaging with your networks (both by asking for and offering help) can also be a great opportunity to highlight and share your background and what you're passionate about.

In addition to actively engaging with your current professional networks, work on expanding your reach. A good starting point is getting to know “who’s who” of the tourism organisations in your region and country, or in your sector.

For example, which organisations are leading destination management and marketing responsibilities at the local, regional and national levels in your area? Destination organisations can be a great source of information, ideas and contacts. So become familiar with the entities active in your area, and learn what services, programs and support offers they provide.

You can also consider the broader destination contexts, for example, does your destination have a national park or protected area that belongs to a wider network? Or are there any relevant international frameworks (e.g. UNESCO World Heritage Convention, or UN Tourism Measuring Sustainable Tourism Framework)?

You may also find relevant industry groups such as sector-focused associations, membership groups, and professional networks. Find ways to actively contribute as a member, and to help others within these networks, NOT because that may help you get a job but because it will help enrich your community and thus your own experience as a member.

Seek out and actively explore opportunities to continue investing in your knowledge and skills related to sustainable tourism.

This may include learning from examples of tourism businesses and organisations working on sustainability, and learning through communities of practitioners through, for example:

• Participating in online and offline support networks of industry professionals.
• Connecting with like-minded professionals to start sharing with each other.
• Expanding your views by learning about good examples from other sectors.

One of your goals for networking (and having a specific idea for what you want to get out of any networking function can be a really good way to help you be more comfortable and confident), for this purpose, can be to ask people for recommendations on any good courses, peer-learning programs, and educational opportunities.

There are many different paths to "working in sustainable tourism". And you can build your own to get to your goals. 

Our Sustainability Journey article series shares stories by and for tourism professionals to help inspire more and more tourism industry colleagues to become actively engaged in sustainability. From business skills to research insights, these stories highlight various paths to working in sustainable tourism and diverse examples of opportunities for tourism professionals.

Learn from these real-life stories of what this diverse group of sustainable tourism professionals have done in their careers, and think of ways how your own sustainability journey story can look like in the future.