ITT Future You: Skills Fest  

National Careers Week 2021

ITT Future You will host its first ‘Skills Fest’ next week, to coincide with National Careers Week (1st to 6th March). The week-long event will include a series of interactive workshops and virtual assignments for students and graduates, focusing on the key skills needed to have a successful career in aviation, travel, tourism and hospitality. 

This latest campaign launched by ITT Future You, follows research that shows a drop in travel industry work placements for students of more than 80% due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Speaking about the launch of the Skills Fest campaign, Claire Steiner, Co-founder of ITT Future You explained “Young people have been disproportionately impacted by Covid-19 and their career prospects damaged immeasurably. With so many industry placements being cancelled, work experience opportunities drying up and a lack of graduate jobs in the market; the industry needs to take action. This is why we’ve launched the ITT Future You: Skills Fest and are encouraging travel businesses to get involved; to help young people develop the industry knowledge and those soft skills that are essential in our sector”. 

Interactive workshops will be hosted via the ITTFutureYou.com talent hub and ITT Future You social media channels, with travel businesses setting assignments for students and graduates to take part in; supporting them to become industry-ready. Key industry skills will be highlighted including sales, customer service, networking, crisis management, digital, personal branding and entrepreneurship; with different industry themes running throughout the week including sustainability, business travel, cruise and aviation. 

Sessions will be hosted by industry brands including Whitbread, Northern Training Academy (NTA), Advantage Travel Partnership, The Global Travel & Tourism Partnership (GTTP) and is being supported by 8 universities across the UK. 

The ITT Future You campaign is part of a pledge on behalf of the travel and tourism industry to get involved in the 10th National Careers Week #NCW2021. 

Speaking about #NCW2021 Steiner said “As the leading careers initiative in the industry, ITT Future You is delighted to pledge our support to #NCW2021 and raise the profile of the travel and tourism sector, as a serious career path for young people. Students are often aware of job roles such as travel agents, cabin crew and holiday reps. This campaign gives us an opportunity to educate the next generation and raise awareness of the wide variety of roles across the industry, including in digital, finance, law and marketing”.

Universities supporting ITT Future You: Skills Fest include: 

• Bournemouth University 
  
• Leeds Beckett University 
• Manchester Metropolitan University 
• Northumbria University 
• Sheffield Hallam University 
• University College Birmingham 
• University of Plymouth 
• University of Wolverhampton