Ecorys UK helps give tourism students work experience

A partnership between the British Council and consulting firm Ecorys has seen students from Liverpool sent on trips across Europe to boost their work experience credentials. More than 30 students from Wirral Met visited locations in Belgium and Spain to improve their post-study employability.

Each year, the tourism and travel industry draws more than 34 million people to visit different parts of the UK, while international tourism is set to go from strength to strength in the next 10 years. With the UK tourism and travel industry therefore keen to recruit new talent to cater to the needs of consumers, holding the right work experience could be a quick gateway into the industry for young workers in the UK.

To that end, every year, the Travel and Tourism department at Wirral Met organises a variety of work placements within the Visitor Economy sector for students to gain work experience abroad with the help of Erasmus+. Erasmus+ is the European Union’s (EU) programme for education, training, youth and sport, with the EU committing £12 billion to the programme between 2014 and 2020. In the UK, the programme is managed by the Erasmus+ UK National Agency, a partnership between the British Council and Ecorys UK.

The initiative provides students with an opportunity to boost their employment prospects while enhancing their university UCAS applications. In both aspects, then, the experience gives students a much-needed leg-up in their hopes of progressing into employment following their studies.

As reported by the Liverpool Echo, this year the scheme has seen 16 travel and tourism students from Wirral Met go to the Granada Aviation College for two weeks, where they enjoyed an exciting timetable of events geared towards employability in the travel sector. April 2019 will see a further 20 students leave Britain for three weeks, which means they can benefit from gaining excellent experience working in hotels and leisure attractions in Spain.

At the same time, Level 2 and 3 Travel and Tourism students will visit Belgium for two weeks’ work experience in the city of Ghent. They will work Monday to Friday over the period to gain experience and skills in customer service, sales, product display, stock control, and even basic language skills.