Hello!
This is the first post of my journey as a travel industry management student.
The theme of this post is "what is travel industry?". A lot of people mistaken my major with hotel management. So, I am going to tell my story about how to deal with those kind of perception on my first year. Hope you enjoy it and do not do the same perception. :D
Finally, I went for university after graduating from senior high school. I choose UPH as my university was just because it's near my house and I got transferred credits from my high school. Every freshmen in UPH should join UPH Festival. It is where you meet your new friends from the same major, get to know UPH more, etc. It was an awkward moment in my 'new' life since I don't know anybody here. Fortunately, it was only 4 days and I got to manage it.
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| UW 2013 @ UPH Festival |
The semester started right after the UPH Festival ended. I got to know Madam Yustisia, Mr Reagen, Madam Sandra, Mr Anthony, and Mr Victor this semester. They taught the basics of being in the travel industry. Basically, travel industry is the combination of accommodation, attractions, transportation that needed by the visitors or we called it tourists who came to another place rather than their home. Here, we were taught how to serve tourist/client with hospitality. Maybe, some of you are confused hospitality and hospital. Well, I did at the first time, but it has some sort of the connection.
Taking this major means we have to wear uniform. We had a gray skirt, white blouse, red tie, and a blazer. We had to wear it from Monday to Thursday. Also, taking this major we had to follow several rules-strict rules. For example, we had to do grooming, we may not dye our hair, punctuality is a must, and several other strict rules mentioned on the "Red Book" (it is our handbook). But, I dealt with it smoothly.
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| My uniform |
Maybe I should tell you the reason why I chose travel industry management as my major. It was just because I like learning new languages and I heard that this major has event organizing class, which I interested for at that time. One thing that I missed about is this major would have traveling a lot! I was really excited to travel, since I don't travel a lot before I entered this major.
On the 1st semester, I have an Eco-tourism class. It was about sustainable tourism, which is different from mass tourism, like what most people did. This class teach us how to be an Eco-friendly traveler as well as tour conductor. It might new for some of us about this idea of tourism, so we had a study field to Pramuka Island. Pramuka Island is one of the islands of Thousand Island, Jakarta. It was such a new experience for me. The whole class had to join this trip by taking a traditional boat. It was not nice though, but I had fun on the island itself. You may check out my whole experience about this trip on my other blog. (click here).
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| Our field study trip to Pramuka Island |
We had two trips this semester. Yes! We had a lot trips because we are basically trained to be a good traveler and tour conductor, where we had to travel a lot. The other trip we went for were Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII). This trip was required for Indonesia Culture class. We had to some research about certain Indonesian culture. My team got West Sumatera. From this trip we got to know more about Padang culture, right from reliable sources.
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| My team mates with the guide in the replica house of West Sumatera |
Regarding with this class, we had a practical score, which is we had to perform traditional dances. It was one of the most embarassing moment this semester, because I CANNOT DANCE. And it's traditional dance, which is harder. But, Praise the Lord! I could pass those moment. Around 10 girls on my class and I got to perform the traditional Bali dance on FJ Square. Bali dance was hard actually, and I had to be on the front row. At that time, I could not remember the steps, so I had to copy my next friend, to be able to perform a good performance. The cloths also a trouble. It was so tight and we had to wear corsets, so our flabby stomach won't be seen. It was really hard to breath, no joking. But, after all those rough process, we performed a good performance. I was quite proud what I have done and my friends who have performed amazingly.
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| Team Bali dance |
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| UW 2013 performed traditional dances of Indonesia |
Since, travel industry is a wide-range of jobs inside in it, sometimes we have to attend a dinner with our client, we have to know about how to dine properly. This semester, I also got the chance to eat at our school restaurant (not the usual cafetaria we have). We had table manner class. It was a tense class, because we have to finished all the food on the plate! Even, we did not like it, we have to finished it. I was a picky for food, but thankfully, I liked the food. It was one of the fun part being a hospitality and tourism student- we got to eat for free.
My first semester was a hard start. But, I do have fun with it! It was a pleasure to have a new wonderful experiences. And hope you could find the difference with hotel management major. See you on the next post. Thanks for reading!
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| Table Manner Class |
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