Tourism has never been just about attracting visitors. It is about people.
The people who welcome guests, tell a community’s stories, operate attractions, manage hotels, create experiences, lead organizations, analyze data, market destinations, and eventually become the next generation of tourism leaders all determine whether a destination thrives.
That makes workforce development more than a human resources issue. It is a destination strategy.
A new resource developed by the Destinations International 30 Under 30 Alumni Council, Building Tourism Talent Pipelines: Destination & Industry Examples, offers a useful look at how destinations of different sizes are tackling this challenge. The collection was specifically created to provide destination and industry organizations with inspiration, practical examples, and real-world approaches for attracting, engaging, and retaining tourism talent.
What makes the resource particularly valuable is that there isn't one prescribed solution. The examples demonstrate something destinations should embrace: effective workforce development starts with understanding the needs of your community, your employers, and the people you hope will join the tourism industry.
One theme recurs across the examples: destinations cannot wait until someone is actively searching for a tourism job to introduce them to tourism careers.
Exposure needs to happen earlier.
Discover Klamath, for example, partnered with a local high school to pilot an internship program that integrates students into real tourism projects. Interns gain exposure to destination projects and stakeholder meetings, and projects are designed to meet both student aspirations and destination needs.
Pick Ellijay takes a similar long-term approach in a rural community facing "brain drain." Students receive mentorship, leadership, and industry immersion experiences, site visits, paid internship opportunities, and other incentives. The results highlighted in the resource are particularly encouraging: recent college graduates who worked with the organization while earning their degrees continued working with the organization after graduation, and a 2021 intern went on to manage social media for the destination.
The lesson is simple: people are much more likely to imagine themselves in tourism careers when we give them opportunities to experience those careers.
Internships appear throughout the resource, but the strongest examples treat them as structured learning experiences rather than inexpensive temporary labor.
Visit Colorado Springs developed an internship that rotates participants through departments, includes a major summer project, incorporates goal-setting and weekly one-on-one meetings, and builds competencies ranging from communication and critical thinking to leadership, teamwork, technology, equity, and inclusion.
Visit Reno Tahoe combines recurring university internships with presentations from executive leadership. Interns participate in projects and meetings while also completing an online tourism-related learning course. The goal isn't simply to complete tasks; it is to help students understand career pathways and experience the day-to-day work of destination organizations.
That's an important distinction.
A good internship answers the question, "What work can this person do for us?"
A great workforce development experience also asks, "What can this person learn here, and how might this experience help them build a career?"
Workforce development shouldn't focus exclusively on bringing new people into tourism.
It also means helping existing tourism professionals grow.
Travel Manitoba's example connects internal employee development with the broader external talent pipeline. Internally, acting assignments provide employees with temporary leadership experience, while conferences, training, travel opportunities, and internal-first hiring practices create additional opportunities for advancement. Externally, the organization collaborates on industry training, a centralized tourism job board, education partnerships, and public-facing career campaigns.
That approach recognizes something destinations sometimes overlook:
Retention is workforce development, too.
When people can see their next opportunity within tourism, they have more reason to remain in the industry.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the resource is that the strongest talent pipelines don't depend on a single internship, a single course, or a single annual career fair.
They create ecosystems.
The Arlington Convention & Visitors Bureau example describes a structured, data-informed approach that reaches more than 1,500 students annually and combines workforce studies, employer engagement, advisory committees, soft-skills training, paid internships, scholarships, teacher education, and year-round events. The program also tracks students after completion to measure whether they enter the industry.
Visit Greater Palm Springs demonstrates another ecosystem approach. Its initiatives span K–12 programming, college scholarships, internships, leadership development, workforce training, networking, and industry partnerships. The results reported in the resource include more than 600 high school students reached, 324+ Leadership Institute graduates, and 1,300+ people trained through its destination advocacy program.
Visit Phoenix similarly works across schools, universities, community organizations, and industry. Its programming includes career awareness, résumé and interview preparation, networking, professional development, mentorship, and industry exposure.
These examples point toward a larger opportunity.
Destinations are uniquely positioned to serve as connectors within the tourism workforce ecosystem.
A destination organization can bring together:
The destination doesn't necessarily have to operate every component itself. Its value can come from creating the connective tissue between them.
Internships create experience. Scholarships create access. Partnerships create connections. Career campaigns create awareness.
Education helps connect those pieces into a pathway.
Someone entering tourism needs more than knowledge of available jobs. They need transferable professional skills, an understanding of how tourism contributes to communities, confidence in interacting with visitors and colleagues, exposure to possible career pathways, and opportunities to continue learning as their responsibilities grow.
That's where Learn Tourism can help destinations turn workforce development ideas into scalable learning programs.
As a nonprofit organization focused on tourism education and professional development, Learn Tourism works with destinations to design learning experiences around the specific needs of their communities and tourism economies.
That might mean creating an introductory program to help high school and college students discover careers in tourism. It might mean developing onboarding and professional skills training for interns. It could involve educating frontline employees about their destination while strengthening service, communication, leadership, and other transferable skills.
Thinking more broadly about destinations, it can mean building an online learning environment that supports people across multiple stages of their careers—from someone discovering tourism for the first time to an experienced professional preparing for leadership.
The most exciting opportunity is to stop thinking about workforce programs as isolated initiatives.
Imagine a student hearing about tourism careers during a classroom presentation. They complete an introductory online learning experience, apply for a paid internship, participate in destination projects, receive mentorship from an industry professional, and continue accessing professional development after accepting their first tourism job.
A few years later, that same person participates in leadership development.
Eventually, they become the mentor.
That's not merely a workforce program.
That's a learning pathway.
And destinations can help build it.
The examples collected by the Destinations International 30 Under 30 Alumni Council show that this work is already happening across destinations with very different budgets, challenges, and communities. The common denominator isn't organizational size. It's intentionality.
Destinations are creating opportunities for people to discover tourism, experience the industry, develop valuable skills, build relationships, and envision a future within it.
The next question for every destination should be:
What does the pathway into—and through—tourism look like in our community?
If that pathway isn't clear yet, building it may be one of the most valuable investments a destination can make.
Learn Tourism can work with destination organizations, tourism associations, educational partners, and industry stakeholders to develop customized workforce learning programs—from career awareness and frontline development to professional skills, leadership learning, and scalable online training.
Explore workforce development and learning solutions at learntourism.org.