The grounding of planes and closure of travel agents hasn’t put a stop to dedicated Travel and Tourism students learning more about their craft.
Loughborough College’s tutors ensured students had access to a world of industry knowledge and experience during lockdown through digital master classes, online events and an online Travel Training Academy.
Loughborough College travel programme lead Elizabeth Gensler said: “The learning the students are getting from the academy is second-to-none.
“The challenge of lockdown has made us much more inventive in our teaching, we are now much more digital in how we teach and it has energised our work.”
The Travel Training Academy programme was introduced in place of work experience placements to ensure students continued to learn from industry excerpts from outside the classroom.
The interactive e-learning platform includes modules for travel agents, cabin crew and overseas holiday representatives and is used by travel companies to train their staff.
One student inspired by the package is Level 3 Diploma Travel and Tourism student Philamena Cordwell, who has completed all Training Academy modules.
She said: “It was an amazing course to do, I have really enjoyed it and it’s kept me busy through the pandemic and I have learned so much by doing all the different courses.
“When I started my course I had a rough idea of what I wanted to progress in after college, the Travel Training Academy has really helped me gain knowledge in the field and has made me even more motivated to want to be a travel agent.
“I got really inspired in all the different elements and I wanted to gain more knowledge of all the different types of jobs in the Industry of travel and I think I got so motivated that each night I would just go to the Travel Training Academy.”
The online package will continue to be used by the College and will be rolled out to more travel and tourism courses to keep students as up-to-date as possible.