ITC Launches Online

ITC now offers a range of online courses

On Thursday 7 August the International Travel College of New Zealand (ITC) officially launched its new online learning programmes.

ITC staff and industry members gathered at ITC’s city campus for the event. Distance Learning Programme Manager Carla Sutton introduced the online courses, thanking the staff involved in creating the courses, and the industry contacts who had provided valuable feedback during their development. Carla gave special mention to Karen Houston of Training & People Development Specialists, who had written the course material.

The courses – which cover cabin crew, ground crew, tour guide, and cruise staff training, customer service, sales skills, and careers in travel and tourism – are wide-ranging in their application.

As well as providing a cost- and time-effective way for those in the industry wanting to upskill and employers wanting to provide professional development for their staff, Carla also spoke about the positive impact they will provide for secondary school students.

“Many students don’t know what they want to do when they leave school; and our school contacts have expressed concern about how to keep students at school in their final high school years. These programmes will give them a taste of the exciting travel and tourism industry and we aim to engage their interest in undertaking further study.”

The accessibility of the courses, which are available on any PC, Mac, tablet or smart phone, is one of their key benefits. Carla spoke about students being able to do lessons on the bus on the way home from school or work, undertaking stop-and-think exercises in their lunch time or connecting with their peers on the forums in the evenings.

Wendy Iceton showing on an ipad how flexible the courses are.

Each course has a Bronze, Silver and Gold level, with Bronze providing basic course lessons and the Silver and Gold levels offering more personalised study and assessment. Gold students will have access to tutors and other students through online forums. Students who complete the Silver and Gold levels will also receive a Certificate of Completion.

A fourth Platinum option is available for customers who want to tailor the online training to their own business. This option provides flexibility in terms of branding, reporting, additional workshops and one-on-one sessions and will allow travel and tourism operators to provide highly relevant professional development to their staff.

It was clear from the evening’s presentation that a great deal of time, care and consideration has gone into developing these new programmes to meet the needs of the wide range of people interested in travel and tourism. And there is plenty more to come. Guests were asked for ideas on what other courses would be valuable for the industry and course writer Karen Houston promised she had plenty of new ideas as well.

Watch this space: http://itconlinetraining.com