TLC277:From University to Workplace

Table of Contents

Introduction...... 3

Description of the Organization...... 3

Description of the Job...... 5

Conclusion...... 7

Reference list...... 9

Appendices...... 10

Timetable and Plan for Contacting Employers...... 10

Interview Paragraph...... 12

Interview Questions...... 12

Introduction

Hospitality is among the oldest businesses in history because people have always travelled away from their homes for leisure or work purposes and required hospitality services. Travel and tourism have continued to play an important part in the global economy and have been recognized as the leading source of employment and accounts for about 10% of aggregate global spending (Eckes 2011). Continued growth in the service industry has necessitated increased diversity as well as specialization that require various kinds of talents.

Hospitality is integral to travel and tourism as it consists of a broad range of restaurants, resorts, hotels and other businesses that are focused on catering for peoples’ requirements and enhancing their experience. These can include airlines, cruise lines, theme parks and extend to catering operations, bed and breakfast businesses as well as large restaurant chains. This paper seeks to analyse the career development path in the Emirates Airlines.To conduct the analysis the research will use primary and secondary sources as well as an interview with a tour guide employed by the Emirates Group.

Description of the Organization

The Emirates group is an international company that is based in Garhoud, Dubai. The company consists of two divisions; the DnataCompany that provides ground handling services and the Emirates Airline. The international conglomerate is owned by the Government of Dubai through the Investment Corporation of Dubai. It employsover 50,000 people across 50 business units in the Middle East. Dnata(Dubai National Air Transport Association) was established 1959 with only five employees and rapidly expanded in the next decades. Due to the strategic location of Dubai as well as its favourable sky policies, it gained popularity as a stopover for European bound aircrafts and by the 1980s it was the busiest airport in the Middle East. At the time, Bahrain based Gulf Air, started to cut back its services from Dubai and instigated the conception of Emirates Airlines in 1985. The company was started with US$ 10 million and two aircrafts provided by the Dubai royal family as well as a Boeing aircraft leased from Pakistan International Airlines (Pederson 2008). The airline was an instant success reporting annual growth rates of over 20% in passenger traffic and was one of the fastest growing airlines in the world.

The Emirates airlines agreed to a partnership with US Airways in 1993 that allowed it to provide its services globally which further fuelled its growth. In 1995 the Emirates Group realized the importance of information technology and launched a company named Mercator to provide business technological requirements for Dnata and Emirates. However the company has since expanded and become a world class global provider for airport and airline technology solutions.

In addition, the Emirates Group also established a hotel in 1999 called the Al Dossa Desert Resort in Dubai. The Emirates Airline is one of the most striking contemporary examples of vertical integration and market power in the travel and tourism industry. The airline is the eighth-largest passenger carrier in the world (Graham, Papatheodorou & Forsyth 2010).It links over 110 cities in 62 countries with a fleet of over 150 aircrafts. It is a rapidly growing carrier that has been ranked second after Singapore Airlines as the world’s most profitable carrier reaching over 27 million passengers in 2009 (Graham, Papatheodorou & Forsyth 2010).

The airline is a division of the larger Emirates Group which in turn is a subsidiary of the Investment Corporation of Dubai which is wholly owned by the Dubai government. This has made the Emirates airline to focus not only on achieving long haul carrier business but also on transforming Dubai into a world class tourist centre. The overall objective is to attract international tourists in order to benefit from the increased traffic flows. This has often involved coordination of government aviation policies with the airline’s corporate strategies to enhance operations, growth and profitability. It has also achieved success by cultivating a corporate culture of highly competent people who live and work in Dubai. The Emirates group has employed people from over 150 nationalities who are offered a tax-free salary and provided with remarkable professional development opportunities. The company has managed to consistently enforce strong marketing strategies that have enabled it to create a strong global brand (Graham, Papatheodorou & Forsyth 2010). For instance, the Emirates group regards sponsorship to be an essential airline marketing strategy and sponsors events and sports clubs both locally and internationally.

Description of the Job

The job is a tour guide for cruise passengers which expects to be filled by an individual that is ready to maintain world class destination management. The position involves conducting guided tours in the UAE and particularly in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Fujairah. The job also requires that successful applicants have fluency both written and spoken in two international languages one of which should be English. Strong customer service competencies are also essential in order to operate in a multi-cultural and international organization. The tour guide is expected to provide information and assistance as well as interpret the scenery for the people on cruise tours. The tour guide is expected to cater for the passengers aboard the cruise ship and ensure that the voyage is as pleasant an experience as is possible. Cruise ship experiences are recognized to extend beyond the voyage to include the ship’s amenities and services in addition to the various destinations along the way.

Tour guides are expected to be knowledgeable of the cultural, historical and geographical information in order to enhance the passengers’ experience (Mason 2008). A tour guide’s responsibilities vary according to the kind of tour as well as the passengers’ preferences. The guide may only be limited to ferrying people between destination to destination and only selecting the likely point of interests, while local commentary can be done by other guides.

In other cases, the guide can be in charge of commentary as well as health and safety of the passengers. In every activity that the tour guide is involved he is expected to intrigue the passengers by creating a sense of adventure in anticipation of the time to be spent in enjoyable and worthy ways. Tour guides are responsible for other people and are organized, careful and good managers of their time in order to ensure that passengers experience everything they expect and more particularly as part of the Emirates group that has cultivated its success by providing excellent products and services (Kurtz, MacKenzie & Snow 2009).

In addition, the tour guide is expected to perform their job with energy as well as insight so that they are not only effective but also entertaining. The passengers need to feel that they are a part of the tour rather than have the guide imposing on them events they feel they would rather not attend. Therefore, the tour guide should be prepared and thoughtful and also have sufficient information about the different aspects of the tours in order to provide comprehensive service to the passengers.

In order to be effective tour guides, it is of great importance to enjoy others company because the guide plays the role of a host and is responsible for ensuring the comfort of the guests. However, it is not enough to be gregarious as the guide can be called upon at any moment to perform any number of activities that will enhance the quality of the passenger’s experience. Customer relations are especially important as some guests may have difficulties communicating especially in unfamiliar surroundings. Thus it requires an adequate understanding of human nature in addition to the ability to solve problems and operate in a team environment characterized by diversity.

However, similar to other jobs tour guides also has several weaknesses. Tour guides have to organize their social lives around their work schedules because they have to accompany the passengers on the voyage. This can be difficult for individuals with tight family situations such as small children who require regular attention (Cohn 2010).

Another weakness of the tour guide job is that it requires someone to always keep gathering more information in order to be most effective in providing explanations and interpretations of heritage sites and other scenery (Salazar 2010). There is also the threat of competitiveness because the job is based on a personality disposition some other individual may be identified as capable of performing the job more effectively. This can be prevented by working diligently as a team member and also being bold and wise enough to identify opportunities and take initiatives. The job is well paying considering that Emirates group is government owned and can provide tax free salaries. The job is also doubly attractive because the tour guide gets the additional bonus of travelling from attraction to attraction in luxurious cruise ships.

Conclusion

The hospitality industry has continued to fascinate me as the economic sector that is most involved in managing people leisure activities. Ever since I can remember I have always been thrilled by the prospect of travelling and staying over in a hotel or a resort. Consequently I chose hospitality as my major. The research on the tour guide position in Emirates Airline reaffirmed my conviction to be involved in the industry where there are a broad variety of activities that are involved with travel and tourism.

The job is in line with my career plans because it provides me with the opportunity to practice the concepts I have learnt in school. Moreover, it is a great place to start a career because it is a fast growing industry and the organization is also expanding very quickly which means that numerous new positions are being created that will be filled from the existing employees. The working environment at the Dnata Company is diverse with people coming from numerous and different backgrounds that make the job very appealing as the right step toward achieving my career goal.

Reference list

Cohn, Jessica. Travel and transportation. New York: InfoBase Publishing, 2010.

Eckes, Alfred. The Contemporary Global Economy: A history since 1980. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.

Graham, Anne, Andreas Papatheodorou, and Peter Forsyth.Aviation and tourism: implications for leisure travel. [Reprinted].ed. Oxford: Ashgate, 2010.

Kurtz, David L., H. F. MacKenzie, and Kim Snow.Contemporary marketing. 2nd Canadian ed. Toronto: Nelson Education, 2009.

Mason, Peter. Tourism Impacts, Planning and Management. London: Elsevier, 2008.

Pederson, Jay P. International Directory of Company Histories, Volume 81. Michigan: St. James Press, 2008.

Salazar, Noel B. Envisioning Eden: mobilizing imaginaries in tourism and beyond. Providence, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010.

Appendices

Timetable and Plan for Contacting Employers

In order to obtain the job at Emirates Airlines as a cruise ship tour guide, it was necessary to arrange a phone interview with Mr. Francis Mugondi, who is a senior tour guide at Abu Dhabi and is also responsible for selection and orientation of new tour guides.

Interview Paragraph

Hello Mr.Mugondi, I am a communications student at Murdoch University, Perth Australia. I would very much appreciate to talk with you for ten minutes about the position of tour guide as posted in your website. I am carrying out a research for my course called From University to Workplace and I believe I would obtain invaluable information if I conducted a ten minute interview with you when you have some time.

Interview Questions

1. What is the major attraction in the tour guide position?
2. What is the major drawback of the position?
3. What are the basic requirements and competencies for performing the job?
4. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the position?

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