Most Important Keywords for the Travel & Tourism Industry
By our guest blogger, CareerTuners
Is your resume getting noticed? Recruiters and employers in the travel & tourism industry rely heavily on Application Tracking System (ATS) software to analyze resumes and shortlist applicants. One critical way to optimize your resume for ATS is to add keywords.
Keywords are nouns or noun phrases that ATS algorithms “catch.” They help indicate to employers that the candidate has skills that match the job requirements. Common keywords include job titles, terms, tools, technologies, degrees, licenses, certifications, training, patents, publications, and locations.
There are two types of keywords. Hard keywords are those that can be quantified or that someone can take a test for, for example, the names of marketing analytics programs. They are the most important with respect to ranking in ATS. In contrast, soft keywords are abstract skills that are hard to test for, but are critical to succeeding at your job, e.g., strong interpersonal skills.
Below are some important keywords for travel & tourism management positions, in bold.
Feel free to copy and paste these terms to your resume if they match your skill set.
However, merely mentioning these keywords in your resume is not enough. You must also write powerful accomplishments that highlight these skills. After each keyword are the most critical questions you should ask yourself before incorporating it into your resume:
Program Development
- Travel Planning: Did you develop any backup/contingency plans for program bottlenecks, such as cancelled flights, overbooked hotels, and stranded clients?
- Itinerary Management: How did you make itinerary management an efficient and cost-effective process? Did you introduce any software solutions to automate routine tasks?
- Reservation Management: What steps did you take to ensure quick and accurate price calculations? Did you increase reservations by developing attractive travel and tourism packages?
Travel & Tourism Industry Partnerships
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: How did you overcome language and cultural barriers when developing business partnerships in other countries?
- Vendor Management: How did you address vendor delays and inefficiencies?
- Community Outreach: What challenges did you address in collaborating with hotels, airlines, and tourist attractions to create value-adding deals?
- Airline Experience: How did you build strategic partnerships with various airlines to get special discounts and deals?
Operations Management
- Safety Management: What steps did you take to ensure program and client safety in foreign locations?
- Data Entry: Did you eliminate errors and redundancies in the data entry process by introducing automation?
- Budget Optimization & Cost Control: What steps did you take to eliminate multivendor costs?
- Industry & Competitor Analysis: What steps did you take to stay abreast of competitor launches?
- Invoicing: What steps did you to take to ensure hassle-free billing?
- Customer Relationship Management: What steps did you take to standardize customer service? Did you develop templates for frequently asked questions?
Sales & Marketing
- Sales Experience: By how much did you increase revenue and sales from upselling and cross-selling travel services?
- Commission Sales: What steps did you take to sustain sales during the COVID-19 pandemic?
- New Business Development: Did you identify and tap new customer and market segments?
- Customer Acquisition & Retention: Did you develop any loyalty or reward programs to generate repeat business?
In addition to these, consider carefully going over the job listing you are interested in for keywords. Which ones are you familiar with? Weave these keywords into your resume.
By asking yourself these questions, you will be able to uncover accomplishments that highlight your strategic leadership skills. This will not only optimize your resume for ATS-compatibility but also set you apart from other applicants.
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At CareerTuners, we help ambitious professionals land their dream jobs by providing professional, Applicant-Tracking-System-compatible resume writing services. Some of our other services include cover letter writing, LinkedIn profile development, interview coaching, and resume distribution. To check out our free resources and blog, please visit careertuners.com.
Bristol Associates, Inc. is an executive search firm with over 50 years of excellence in recruiting nationwide. Bristol specializes in recruiting for the Casino Gaming; Facilities and Concessions; Food and Beverage Manufacturing; Hospital and Healthcare; Hotels and Resorts; Nonprofit; Restaurant; and Travel, Tourism, and Attractions industries.
If you’re interested in working with Bristol Associates, click here if you’re an employer or here if you’re a candidate.
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