Internships are by far the highlight of any hospitality training course. No matter what the student is studying, the internship portion of the program will give them the opportunity to apply their knowledge in a real working situation, and at the same time get paid and make valuable contacts for when they graduate. In the hospitality industry, there are so many great options for specialisation that it can often be hard to choose just one. The following are just some of the great internship options for those studying hospitality.
Hotel Internships
Internships in hotels are great for students who are enrolled in hotel management, business management, event management or customer relations programs. This is a great opportunity for students to get a glimpse of what life is like on the customer services side of running a hotel. Students aren’t limited to large hotel chains however, as they can often participate in an internship at one of the many boutique hotels, bed and breakfasts or hostels that are scattered all over the country. This is a great chance for students to get out of the classroom and experience some of the action. It will also help them decide whether or not working in accommodation is right for them.
Tour Guide Internships
Tour guide internships are great for students who are enrolled in Tourism or Guiding courses and that want to gain a little practical knowledge. Students generally get the opportunity to work in a variety of contexts such as gourmet food and wine tours, adventure tours, cultural and heritage tours, or city interpretative tours. There is a lot more to guiding than just having knowledge on a specific topic, as students also need to learn how to properly care for their customers’ needs, and internships are a great way to learn these skills.
Restaurant Internships
Although there are five star restaurants all over the country, students who are enrolled in culinary programs, and who reside in major cities such as Sydney and Melbourne, have the the best internship options. Not only are there some amazing restaurants to learn in, but also some amazing world-class chefs to learn from. Although there are some great up-scale restaurants for students to try their hand, some of the boutique shops can be just as interesting. Gourmet cheese shops, bakeries, cake shops, bistros and cafes are also great learning environments for student interns.
Gastronomy Internships
A Diploma, Bachelors or Masters in gastronomic tourism has some very interesting applications for students who are ready to take on their internships. The course program itself is very eclectic and combines tourism, hospitality, writing and media, making for a variety of internship options. Students can work with wineries to learn about wine from a historical, cultural and contemporary viewpoint, or they could even work for cuisine magazines writing on topics such as sustainability and food security, or even about the history of gastronomy.
There are a lot of amazing and interesting opportunities for hospitality students when it comes to internship placements, especially in a country like Australia that takes it’s tourism and hospitality services very seriously.
