Thomas Worry: From Seasonal Work to a Sustainable Tourism Career

Episode Description

In this episode of Tourism Matters, Carmen Bold speaks with Thomas Worry, a Canadian tourism professional whose career has been built across seasonal roles, international experience, and corporate tourism operations.

Thomas shares how he navigated working across Canada’s Yukon — from guest services and RV rentals to guiding Northern Lights tours — and what it really takes to build a career in an industry defined by seasonality.

The conversation explores the realities of tourism careers that don’t follow a straight path, the importance of proactively creating opportunities, and how networks often matter more than formal job pathways.

Thomas also reflects on the bigger picture — from sustainability and crisis recovery to the growing need for stronger alignment between education and industry — and what this means for the future of tourism careers.

What You'll Take Away From This Episode

• What a tourism career actually looks like in practice — not theory

• How to navigate seasonality through multiple roles and income streams

• Why career progression in tourism is driven by initiative, not structure

• The role of education alongside hands-on experience

• How sustainability and industry challenges are shaping future careers

About Thomas

Thomas Worry is a Canadian tourism professional with experience spanning seasonal tourism operations, international travel, and corporate roles.

He has worked across a wide range of tourism settings, including guest services, RV rentals, cruise tourism, and guided Northern Lights experiences in Canada’s Yukon.

Thomas has built his career by combining practical, on-the-ground experience with formal study in tourism management, giving him a well-rounded perspective on both the realities of the industry and its future direction.

His work and interests focus on sustainability, industry development, and the evolving relationship between tourism education and real-world application.

Connect with Thomas on LinkedIn

Connect with Carmen on LinkedIn

Organisations Referenced

Royal Roads University: https://www.royalroads.ca/

Yukon Tourism: https://travelyukon.com/

Episode Chapters

00:54 Thomas’s Background and Entry into Tourism

03:09 Navigating Seasonal Work in the Yukon

07:52 Working Across Cruise and Winter Tourism

10:50 Building Networks and Creating Opportunities

16:48 Education, Career Planning and Industry Entry

20:55 Working in Remote Tourism Environments

29:01 The Growth of Winter Tourism and Northern Lights Experiences

35:01 Soft Skills and Career Development in Tourism

43:45 Moving into Corporate Roles and Career Progression

55:40 Sustainability, Industry Challenges and Future Thinking

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome friends to the Tourism Matters Podcast, where I, Carmen Bold, explore the people, careers, and ideas shaping the tourism industry today. I'm very excited to announce that this week in episode number 15, I sat down with my very first Canadian guest, Thomas Warrie. Thomas has had a unique career journey in the tourism industry in Canada and has recently returned to further education and is studying a master's degree in tourism management at Rural Roads University. So I have a good chat this week about how Thomas has navigated the seasonal nature of work in Canada, his views on leadership, academics, as well as what he believes to be some systemic issues in the industry. So it's a really interesting chat with Thomas. You represented well, and I look forward to having more Canadian guests on the podcast. So please enjoy the conversation, and I'll be back at the end to give my two bobs and my key takeaways. Hello, Thomas. Welcome to the Tourism Matters Podcast. Thanks for being here with me today. Now, for my listeners, where are you in the world?

SPEAKER_03 1:20

I am in currently I am in Victoria, British Columbia, not your Victoria, but uh in Canada. I've just come back from Whitehorse Yukon, which is in the north part of Canada. So that's kind of where I've been a little bit, but I'm in uh Victoria, BC at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

I'm very excited. You're my first Canadian guest, so this is fabulous for me. And I do have a soft spot for Canadians. So I'm I'm very pleased to have you here with me today.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Pressure's on.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

The pressure is on, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Yeah. Represent Thomas.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Right. So before we get started, a couple of quick get to know you questions. So me and my listeners can understand Thomas Worry a little further. Right. When you're traveling, are we aisle seat, middle seat, or window seat on that there aeroplane Thomas?

SPEAKER_03 2:14

I am a firm believer in the window seats. Um I will and I'm six foot two um and meter ninety for the more metrically inclined of your uh of your listeners.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 2:29

So it is it is a sacrifice on my part.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

It is.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

And I'm flying a lot of northern latitudes, um you know, in the Arctic Circle on occasion. You know, you get a chance to see the northern lights from the plane, and because you're above the cloud line. So even if it's cloudy, you still get a chance and you have this. Maybe you get a one of the few people in the world who happen to be in the air above the cloud line to see the northern lights for particular nights. How do you say no to that?

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Have you seen that?

SPEAKER_03 2:59

Yeah. Have you?

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Well, that's cool.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

Yeah, it's it's great. And like, I mean, I'm a firm believer as well, the middle seat. You get it's your birthright to have both armrests, but like, how do you unless you're Popeye, why do you why would you I don't think anyone would pick the middle seat.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

I don't know. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I will continue to ask this question until I find someone that that that desires the middle seat on the airplane. That's gotta be. It's gotta be someone. Well, yeah, the glimpse, uh, the chance of of being able to see the northern lights from from an aeroplane is definitely worth the inconvenience of not being able to get up or having to shunt everyone aside to get up from the window seat. I must agree with that. Right. And when you've arrived at your destination at your at your hotel buffet breakfast, what's going on your plate or in your bowl? Where are you headed?

SPEAKER_03 3:54

I don't go for the bowl. I uh I'm definitely, you know, classic bacon, eggs, sausage, uh, that kind of thing. But honestly, the last time I was at a hotel that actually had a sort of traditional continental breakfast, I was in Paris for the Olympics, and they had those like miniature croissants, and it was just I probably had 15 of those, and it was like I wouldn't have wanted to be in the splash zone in front of me from that. It was like the cookie monster just blah.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Went in from the door.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah, that's it in many croissants. So it'll keep going, and then you you know stuff them in your pocket so you can.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

Yeah, I mean Yeah. And what's funny about that as well, actually, at that particular hotel, we it was during the Olympics in 2024. We were uh my partner and I, we were there to watch the rugby, women's rugby. And um the South Korean delegation, I think, uh, was also in the hotel with us. Um I didn't I'm thinking about this now, actually, but they had we were walking by the breakfast area and they have, you know, I'm looking through and they have a bunch of this I'm gonna say Korean food that I was like, where the heck did they get that from? And I was wondering, I was look scanning the buffet, and then I'm now I'm realizing that there must have been like obviously very strict regiment of food in the uh in their diets, the athletes' diets. So they brought it all with them from Korea.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

With them. Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

Which in France I would think it'd be like a no-go, you're eating our stuff, but I guess for the Olympics, they make you say we'll make an exception for the Olympians.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Oh, that's interesting. Mm-hmm. All right. Well, thank you for that deep, deep insight. Um Right, I'd like to go back to young Thomas. Where did you grow up?

SPEAKER_03 5:47

I grew up in the province of Ontario, uh, which is in the center east part of Canada. It's the largest province by population, major cities, Toronto, Ottawa. And I grew up about an hour north of Toronto. And it is Toronto. We don't pronounce the second T, so uh that's how you tell somebody's from that area.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Uh and it's uh it's a great place to be from, I would say, and you know, a good place to grow up. But you know, I didn't really have a a travel background. We're very kind of middle class people, and we and I I'm a walking cliche because I play hockey and I, you know, prefer the cold and everything. So, you know, we were spending most of our time doing uh winter sports, and you know, me and my family, uh we didn't do the typical family vacation thing. Uh we went to upstate New York maybe once or twice, maybe we did school trips, that kind of thing. But in terms of actual traveling in that area, it's typical to sort of go to the Caribbean for um, you know, during the winter or never was something on my radar. So I grew up kind of in a non-travel household. Not that we weren't interested in it, it's just it was never in the cards. We had other priorities. But I was always massively interested in history and geography. And I uh that's kind of where I sort of started my my travel and tourism journey. I was it was more of a history and geography background in my okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

So you studied in high school. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:16

Yeah, yeah. In my high school, we have a competition, Captain Canada, which is just basically random Canadian trivia and geography facts, and I won it two years in a row.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

So I was I was that kind of nerd who was into the uh give me an example Captain Canada question.

SPEAKER_03 7:32

Let's see. Oh gosh, it has been a while.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Well, like about the geography of Canada, is that the type of question?

SPEAKER_03 7:40

Yeah, yeah. So like there's a lake that I'm now forgetting the name of, but Canada has the only island in a lake in an island uh in a lake in the world. So it's in Quebec and they have this yeah, it's a big lake with an island and a lake inside the island. So it's Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Kind of like a donut.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

No, no, not really, because there's no center of a donut. Okay, no. Right, that's a really interesting and random fact. So Captain Canada, two years running. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

And here we are now. Alright, so a love of geography and history.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Where does that take you then when you finish school? What did you did you know what you wanted to do or have an inkling or what happened?

SPEAKER_03 8:31

I don't think I really did, to be honest. I was um I was quite skilled with history, geography, politics, law, civics, those kind of courses. I was god awful at math, I still am, um sciences, that kind of thing. And it kind of led me to my first crack at um uh university was uh I was trying to get a history degree. Um so I started in history, and you know, when you do a history degree or when you start one, you get all the questions, uh, what are you gonna do with that? Are you gonna be a history teacher? Are you gonna be um and that's basically where the conversation ends, is uh most people can't get past history teacher.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:09

Yeah. Um, and I did consider that, and I considered uh, you know, archaeology and um writing and stuff like that, or maybe pivoting to like uh law or something like that. But I started university and was quite young. I was 17, and I think I was too young. You know, I went there and I was just, you know, the first year wasn't bad because it was first taste of freedom and, you know, uh trying to figure out what life is like in in that sense. And then my second year, I really just didn't I knew that it wasn't for me, and I stopped kind of going to class. I really, you know, the interest in the classes started to fade. Not that they weren't interesting, but it was challenging for me to really kind of get myself excited for this kind of stuff. And I pictured myself staring down the barrel of three more years of that.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

And I was Yeah. Okay. So do you think it was a university itself or the what you were studying, do you think?

SPEAKER_03 10:12

I think it was originally university itself and the fact that I was too, too young, you know, I think I think it was like it was a pretty big leap for me to go from a pretty structured high school experience to sort of, you know, jumping in. Oh, you're a grown-up now, you gotta like manage your time well and you have to do that. And it just really wasn't uh for me. And by the time I was entering my third year, I kind of just gave up altogether. And I was yeah, I was living alone, I was pretty down. Um, I don't want to, you know, self-diagnose or anything, but I'm sure that I was some I was uh I was slightly depressed and you know, I just didn't want to do it. And you know what? I'd been studying and learning about all these places and people and things and history and geography, and I had never been anywhere really, like outside of southern Ontario and a few other places in within a few hours' drive of uh of Toronto in that area. My it w I remember it distinctly, it was uh Halloween night in 12, 2011.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

And I made a decision and I used the money um that was meant to go for my tuition for the next semester, which would start in January, and I bought a ticket, uh, a round trip, a ticket for six weeks to London. And it was just on a whim on a uh just sort of we're doing this, and it was like 11 p.m. at night. And so but yeah, no, and I used that money to book my trip and sort of plan that out. And you know, I obviously had to explain that to my uh my parents as well, and I think it's still up for debate to this day whether I left university or got kicked out. Yeah, I I think mutual breakup at the very least. And uh yeah, there was a real it was um kind of scary. I was 20 years old at that point, I think, or 19, I guess, and I hadn't really done anything. And I think that was the thing that sort of triggered me to uh kind of get off the couch and actually go to the places that I'd been learning about and studying stuff. And I was a little hesitant. Um I was I chose the UK because it's an English-speaking country and I wanted to, you know, sort of ease my way in, so to speak. But that six-week trip to the UK really changed my life. I had I had an incredible time. I really stepped into my uh it was sort of the first step in finding out who I really was. And I was like, I was going through hostels, I was meeting local people, I was meeting travelers, I was doing all the fun stuff you're supposed to do when you're 19 and that kind of stuff. And I'd never even considered that before. And yeah, it was incredible.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Um just before we move on, then um would you have described like what was your personality like then? Were you introverted, extroverted, you know, was this a difficult, you know, thing? I I'm just thinking back last week I spoke to uh a guy called Matt Scott and he had a really similar story. He's from the UK, but he studied Russian studies in high school and then went had never left the UK and he said his first trip to London was to get his passport and then he went to Russia and didn't come back, didn't go back to the UK for three years. So a kind of similar start, but he said he was very introverted and it was very challenging for him, you know, in that three years of traveling, but life-changing obviously.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

Yeah, I would say similar story as well. Not quite uh first time, what is his first time out of his to London was to get his passport.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:59

I was a little more maybe a little more out there than that, but um I yeah, I I would describe myself as incredibly timid. I didn't want to um, I didn't want to, what's the phrase, you know, stir anything up. I didn't want to cause a fuss, you know, uh, with anything like that. And I kind of pictured my future and my career going in a sort of similar way of what you could typically expect, at least where I grew up, where, you know, you you go to work, you go home, you leave things at the door, and you kind of live a fairly normal life. And I kind of interpreted that as, you know, how you should act is being timid. And I kind of grew up with that mindset. And I didn't really want to go out there and do that kind of stuff, but this was a real sort of like, if I don't do this, then what am I who am I gonna be? Sort of moment, you know. Which is really scary when you're 19.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yeah. Hats off to you. So six weeks in just in England?

SPEAKER_03 15:04

So I I actually was in I landed at Gatwick in south of London, and I didn't even go to London. I went directly to Bristol.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

England. I spent I basically did a U around the UK, so yeah, Bristol, and then I was in Wales for a little bit, up to Liverpool. I took a ferry over to uh Northern Ireland, uh, spent some time in Scotland and then straight down.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Right.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

And spent about a week in London afterwards. So in and around.

unknown 15:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Okay. And then then you returned home?

SPEAKER_03 15:35

And then I returned home to some uh questions about what uh what to do next, basically.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

And what was next? What were you thinking now?

SPEAKER_03 15:46

So I had gotten I'd gotten the travel bug at that point. I I was kind of waiting for the next trip uh at that point, and I think I had fully embraced the fact that I wasn't going to be following a typical path. And I actually discovered that a school in Canada we have uh college and university. I don't know if it's the same in Australia, but a university is a four-year degree program, a college is sort of a two-year diploma with more practical applications, so to speak. So there was a school um not far from my hometown, about 30-minute drive, uh, that had a tourism and travel program. And I looked into that and um, you know, I was like, what what could this do for me? Like what I didn't even know what I wanted to be or what I wanted to do. I didn't have anything in that mindset, but I was like, oh, maybe this will at least open a door for me to do something interesting and fun. And it was I could I could live with my parents, I could commute, and then, you know, maybe get a little financial recovery after blowing most of my uh tuition money on a trip.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

So did you so you went ahead and and did a two-year diploma? Yes, I did.

SPEAKER_03 17:00

So yeah, I I jumped in and it was uh the actual program was called Tourism and Travel. And it was a little different than what I was expecting, to be honest, because I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I got in there. I knew it would help me kind of get in the door, but there were other programs of like uh hospitality, uh, hotel, restaurant management, ski and snow operations management, um, events, uh recreation, these things. But this was sort of the this was sort of the um the broader tourism travel generalist one, I would guess.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Yeah. And it had a uh it had a co-op opportunity, um, co-op you know like basically an internship service. Internship.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Okay, yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

Yeah. And um with that, um with that program, it led me to a lot of opportunities. And within Canada, you know, we're kind of famous for people, especially from places like Australia and Western Europe, you know, doing a year in a ski hill or something in Alberta or, you know, go lodge in Vancouver Island, something like that. And I saw those opportunities and I was like, that's kind of, you know, typical, isn't it? Like it's kind of boring. But then I had a I had a chance, I saw an opportunity for a white horse in the Yukon. Now, for those of you who don't know what the Yukon is within Canada, it's uh one of the three northern territories. It's right on the border of Alaska. It's sort of within like the southern part of Canada, the provinces where you know 99% of the people live, it's the sort of like in the mindset of most people, it's just this frozen wasteland of nothingness. And, you know, it's cold, it's dark, or um it's, you know, nobody lives there. It's like what is this kind of place? And that and I said, that's the one I want. That's the that's the place I want to go to.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

And what was so what was it? What were you doing?

SPEAKER_03 18:53

So it was there were a lot of cruise ships going to Alaska, and uh there's a one major port in southeast Alaska called Skagway. Um, it's one of the largest cruise ports in uh North America. Just by natural geography, it can hold a lot of cruise ships, and it's one of the stops that basically every Alaska cruise makes while they're going up and down the coast. And uh it's about a two and a half hour drive from Whitehorse. So they had a lot of Canadian operations as well, people coming off of the cruise ship, taking a train or taking the bus, getting across the border, and then getting into Whitehorse, and then eventually to another place called Dawson City further north in the Yukon. So I uh basically that role would have been sort of it was what would have been called guest service host, I think was the title.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

And um I got in there and yeah, I'd never been anywhere really within Canada either, and I wanted to see Canada. And at the time, um, and it still is quite expensive to fly within Canada, but it was much cheaper, and I still hadn't fully financially recovered from uh my little sojourn across the Atlantic.

unknown 20:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

So I actually bought a bus ticket uh from Toronto to get a white horse.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

So how how far's that? How long would that bus road be?

SPEAKER_03 20:08

It was 100 hours nonstop on the bus. It was brutal. Oh my god. I can't say it wasn't all that. I would say I enjoyed like 80% of it, but that's still 20 hours of wishing you were dead while you're on the road. It was so it was so long.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

But I did I did get to see a lot of this country though, which was incredible.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

It was great experience that ticked that one off. Don't need to do it again.

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Okay, so you pick up this internship or alike. And how long are you so how long are you in Whitehorse for?

SPEAKER_03 20:44

So it was a summer seasonal job, and I had the obligation I had to get back to because this was the end of my first year in uh my program, and I had still had a second year that I had to do. So I I went up there, I did the summer season, and the way I describe it to my friends is um I don't know if you're familiar with the John Denver song, Rocky Mountain High.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 21:08

In the first line, he was born in the summer of his 27th year, going home to a place he'd never been before. That's how I describe it to my friends. Because it was when I arrived in the Yukon, it was within days I knew it's this is the place I want to be.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 21:24

I loved every second of uh of my time there in my my first year exactly the kind of pace, the people, the lifestyle. The work was great too. Um just, you know, I spent most of my time just talking to tourists, basically, and like, you know, handling logistics to a degree, you know, we had buses coming in every day. Um anywhere between fifty and hundred and fifty people coming into the hotel.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:57

We're s were selling tours as they arrived. Almost all 95% of them are American as well. You know, there's a bit of a cultural connection there, and they want to say that they talked to a Canadian guy or they met oh, they're so friendly over there, you know, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Is that right?

SPEAKER_03 22:14

Oh, all the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Wow. So that's really customer-facing. That's yeah, really. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:21

And we would do stuff as well, like if somebody was sick, you know, and they don't quite know how to navigate the Canadian healthcare or anything like that, or they just need a ride to the hospital or something like that. Or if you know they had to be left behind, things get lost, you know, more of the operations side of things.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Oh, yeah, okay. So then you return and complete the second year?

SPEAKER_03 22:44

I did. That time I didn't think I could get away with it twice of uh leaving school. But um I had done really well in that first summer. Um, and I I really enjoyed it. My boss uh at the time, he really enjoyed my company and he told me I fit really well with everything and invited me back, uh, which is great. He did he told me that, you know, I could basically do this as much as I as long as I wanted. And it's funny, he told me, you know, you were guest service host uh your first year, but we're gonna make you an operation supervisor. And I did one of these, like the operation supervisor, in uh in air quotes. My role didn't change that much in the sense of like I gained more responsibility. I was certainly more confident in my abilities, and I was certainly more able to handle situations like that. I don't know if in the um in the database, the the HR database for them, if I was ever listed above guest service hosts or what, but when he was if he was ever listed as my reference, uh he was definitely telling, calling me the operation supervisor.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

So all right, this is good.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

It's good on paper. Even if it's just your paper, not HR's paper.

SPEAKER_03 23:57

Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Oh wow. All right. So what do you say you continued to go back there for the summers?

SPEAKER_03 24:04

Yeah, so I uh that would have been somewhere 2016 then at that point. That would have my second year there. And then I'd I don't have to go back to Ontario after that. Uh uh I kind of had to figure out what I'm doing in the Yukon. I made the decision that I wanted to stay there. And uh I had to figure out, all right, what do we do in the winter here? Because uh destination like that, uh, you know, it's subarctic, it's gets obviously bitterly cold in the winter, or at least has the reputation of getting cold in the winter. And at that time, the winter tourism market hadn't really been well developed yet. It was starting to gain some traction, but it hadn't really been built up properly yet, I would say. So I ended up working at a sports store and basically polishing skis and sharpening skates and that kind of thing. Doing that kind of stuff just as a sort of temporary gig. But it always kept me coming back to that initial guest service position, the operations position for the cruise, the cruise line. So I kind of just I found my place in the winter, do whatever I could. And uh that actually the the winter job led me to running the uh the ski hills, the local ski hills uh rental shop as well. So I kind of got into a yeah, I kind of got into a rhythm of summers with the cruise ship, winters with uh the rental shop.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Uh this is, yeah, I I love this because you know, seasonality in the tourism industry is a real issue when it comes to workforce and careers. So I always love hearing how my guests navigate that off season when they're in a seasonal position. And uh it's just uh such a delightful it's always, you know, there's a million ways just gonna cat, you know, and you just you just need to work out your way and what works for you.

unknown 26:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

If you know yeah, that's fascinating. And you weren't tempted to leave the Yukon to go somewhere else for the winter.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

No, no. I think here's my possibly the most offensive thing I can say to an Australian person is that um I hate the beach. I don't like the beach at all.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Right, okay.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

And yeah, that's uh that's I'm glad we got through that bear.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

No. No more needed, no more needed to be said, right. Firmly. Firmly in the Yukon. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 26:46

Yeah. But but yeah, no it's uh it really that sort of lifestyle up there, you know, I much prefer, you know, that I'd rather be in a wooden cabin with a fire going and watching the snow from the outside than sitting on a beach just you know melting. Sipping a guava smoothie or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Yeah. Covered in sand.

SPEAKER_03 27:10

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

What is it not my thing?

SPEAKER_03 27:13

I do like the lake. I like the lake, you know.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Oh yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:16

Yeah. Uh but like sunny beach ah gross. Um, you know, it's uh because you're in um I don't know where in Australia you are.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

I'm in Perth in Western Australia.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

So I imagine that it's you know, a sauna right now and basically everywhere you go.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:37

But uh yeah, in uh Whitehorse, you know, in the winter, I'd say the average should be minus twenty to there could be days it goes to minus forty, but sometimes days it goes to minus ten, minus five kind of thing. So it's uh uh you know, nice jacket and you're all set to go.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Yeah, well that's what they say, don't they? It's no bad weather or any bad clothing, or whatever that stupid saying goes. All right, well, um let's keep moving through your career. So um, you're obviously at some point the the seasons um of the cruise ships come to an end. So what what happens next?

SPEAKER_03 28:17

So I had been doing that, and it hadn't been taking up so much of my time that I wasn't able to do other stuff as well. So I like I said, I had been doing the cruise ship seasons in the summer and skis in the winter, but I was also doing other sort of tourism adjacent things. I did catering for a while. Uh I was helping with that. I did it mostly because it was free food at the end of the event. I did uh the one job that I have done probably the longest, and I will still do when I get back to the Yukon is uh a porter. I was a luggage guy.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 28:54

And yeah, and uh, you know, it's basically you get up at 6 a.m. to move the bags to the buses and you get paid to work out and you have this informal chat with the guests, and it's it was always a ton of fun. So I was doing that. I also uh did some driving, I did some tour guiding. Uh, I got my advanced license, so we call it a class four, which allows us to drive buses of people. So I did a bit of that as well on the side.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

And can I ask then, Thomas, how are you finding these opportunities? Is this just because you've sort of, you know, developed a network in the local industry, or how are you finding all these random opportunities?

SPEAKER_03 29:35

Occasionally it would just be through just talking to people. Like I was working, the the cruise ship company was a big player in town. You know, they had hundreds of guests every night. They were filling up at least one hotel basically every night. And um, a lot of people were working off of that business, right? So I was building connections through that as well. Uh just people who, you know, were guiding and were taking people on the guides or on the tours that we sold. You know, I get talk with them while they were coming in, waiting for their group to get together, or the luggage thing, for example. I just was being particularly uppity what day you'll say, and uh I said, hey, do you need a hand with the bags? And uh catering uh was another gig where it was just a friend of mine who had been working the front desk of a hotel and then moved into a catering role, and they just were desperate for help. It was their first big catering gig, and a bunch of people called in sick. Okay, I'll jump on the grenade, I'll get in there, and then uh it wasn't so bad, and we made it work, and I kept helping her out for uh for basically the whole winter, and yeah, so I never I kind of mentioned like the main things I did, but always had a couple of other sidekicks on the on the way as well, which helped me sort of spread my nets a little bit in the sense of getting to know people and getting to see different sides of the industry.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Yeah, yeah. And I hope my listeners are taking paying good attention here to Thomas, because once again, I have a guest here that is just sort of thinking outside the box or just putting themselves out there and just taking opportunities when they swing by and one thing leads to another. You know, there's only so much we can do from sitting at our computers and you know, connecting with people on LinkedIn or sending your CVs off to an ad on a job board. But in our little industry, it it happens on the ground.

SPEAKER_03 31:35

Yeah, absolutely. And like, you know, I've now I've moved to a state in my career where I've been in enough I've talked to some CEOs and people who are well high up in their organizations, and they're if you talk to them, they're not gonna bite your head off. They're not gonna, they're not the cold, calculated people from the American movies or whatever, especially in the hospitality side. Like you talk to a hotel manager or something like that, they started doing it like that as well, and they still have that little, you know, they have that spark in them. They didn't just they didn't, you know, grow out of that, right? So I just talking to people, honestly, it took some time to like bang that in my own head, but definitely, yeah, definitely helped. But uh Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

And you know, that skill doesn't always naturally sorry, doesn't come naturally to everyone just to be able to sort of, you know, have a chat with a stranger or to put yourself out there. But I hand on heart, you know, if you want to have a meaningful and rewarding career in the tourism or hospitality or events industry, it has to be done. And it doesn't it doesn't have to be forceful, but it you know, even just you know, opening yourself up and having a chat to the people that, you know, within your network, as you just highlighted in your example, you know, you with the Porter opportunity, you were just there and just said what came into your head, which was, do you need a hand? Um Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:04

And like if I'll be honest, with that particular job, I could be running as I could be the CEO of the most successful tourism company in the world. I'll probably still want to do a bit of luggage on the side just because it's a nice way to make some cash and get a nice little workout while you're doing it.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Yeah. All right. So what happens next?

SPEAKER_03 33:23

So I had been coming back to um the cruise ship company every year, and I was operation supervisor. Um and then eventually they uh um there was a point where the person who hired me, the sort of my uh I'll call him my mentor, really. Um he was sort of really helped me out on sort of the mentoring aspect of of the role and that kind of stuff. And uh eventually he decided to move on to another another spot. He was gonna go work on cruise ships, which is something I never had the desire to do. I didn't want to be so far removed from from my home life. And then his job opened up. And I hesitate to use the word my first real job because all the other jobs were, of course, real and um, you know, valuable and skilled work uh as a mid-way, but this was the sort of first year-round manager professional sort of job that I that I'd found. And I was basically um I'd been basically training up for it for the last uh at that point five years, four years of uh my uh of my summer life. Um and I had a really good idea of what I was jumping into. I uh yeah, I was ready for it. And um it was uh it was one of those moments where this is a big corporation as well. Like I won't go into the specific brands, but it goes it falls under the Carnival Corporation, uh, which is uh for those who don't know, is one of the largest, it might be the largest tourism travel company in the world. And uh they uh Yeah, so I sort of started in that I had a path with with them where I was already listed as a manager this time for realties, like on the paycheck and everything. This you are a manager with this company.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

What way operations manager or yeah, operations manager. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 35:19

Yeah. Uh and they, you know, I had a uh salary. I was working, you know, we have an expression, you work till the sun goes down, which in the Yukon, you know, we're such a high latitude, the sun doesn't basically ever set in the summer, and then you only get a few hours in the winter. Uh so yeah, I was running around with my hair on fire for four months, and then the next eight months was just preparing for the the summer season again, but it was a little more low-key. But I actually had a real salary and a path sort of to grow with the company. And it was great. I kind of sorry.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

I was just gonna say, was that important to you to have an idea, you know, that you there was a career path ahead of you?

SPEAKER_03 35:59

I think that having the title was nice to have. And I probably looking back at it now, I think I appreciate that I got that, especially with a sort of reputable large organization like that. It's it was as much as corporations and corporate travel organizations have maybe a bad reputation, they are definitely a decent place to cut your teeth in a career-building world. Uh because, you know, there's a reason they're as successful as they are. They have very strong operations. Yeah. But um at this time, uh I could have stayed at that place for the next 35, 40 years and retired there and probably been pretty comfortable and lived a good life and had a good career. But um, life gets in the way sometimes, and I was getting a little disillusioned with that that sort of corporate style. And I certainly asked myself, is this the kind of path I wanted to be at? And uh, I had been with my partner at that point, um, who's not from Canada, and their visa was expiring and they had to go back to their home country. And I was sort of at this crossroads of all right, now what I can what am I gonna do? Am I going to stick with this and like build a career out of it and like, you know, wait for my partner to figure out what's gonna happen, get her back, or um, am I gonna go with her, basically? And uh I did the romantic thing and I left the job and I went with her.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 37:28

Yeah, I should say uh to France. She's from France.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

France.

unknown 37:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:33

And uh this all happened in February 2020.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

Yeah. Oh, it's quite amazing the very large life transitions that seem to have happened at the beginning of 2020.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

Yeah, exactly. And you know, it's funny because like had I not quit my job, I would have been laid off in three weeks anyway.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 37:54

So the timing was I can't imagine what I would have like if I had said no, we're gonna wait, like you're gonna figure it out, and you can come back in a few weeks or whatever, once you figure out the visa situation. And then if the world ended in that in the meantime, I don't know what that would have looked like for me. But I went to France to be with her while we figured out her visa situation.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

Right.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

The world ended.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:15

And then I was stuck there for about a year, just over a year, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

Well, you did you you obviously you couldn't work during that time, I guess?

SPEAKER_03 38:24

Uh not really. Um like her dad actually owns a trampoline park in uh in another little corner of France. So obviously wasn't open during lockdown and stuff like that, but we helped out a little bit and you know, I did a temp thing a little bit as well.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Did you get really good at trampolining?

SPEAKER_03 38:41

I wish. That would have been great. But uh yeah, no, it was a it was a ton of fun. And I'll tell you what, if you if anyone wants to learn a language, I would say like some people are intimidated to um start learning a language, or a lot of people who are getting into the tourism industry think that, oh, maybe I need to learn a language. You don't. It helps, certainly. But um a great way to learn a language is literally being locked inside of people who only speak of the foreign language because none of her family spoke English. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

So can you speak French now?

SPEAKER_03 39:17

Uh pretty good. It's not perfect, but um, yeah, like I said, a year of being stuck inside. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Yeah, yeah. Wow. All right. So after a year, you returned to Canada?

SPEAKER_03 39:31

Yeah. So once things had started to cool down and once we figured out the visa situation for her, we were looking to get back to the Yukon, back to Whitehorse. And then I saw this opportunity on um a local hiring board. It was for an RV company, which I'd never been in an RV. I didn't know anything about RVs. I guess in Australia they're called caravans or campers or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Camp, yeah, camper vans or motorhomes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:54

Yeah, exactly. In North America, RV would be the term. But yeah, and I no idea about it. But um COVID had just sort of devastated their whole operation, not just in the sense of they couldn't rent anything to tourists anymore, but um their staff had been completely gutted. There when I interviewed for the job, I think they had two staff, and they normally run with about it peak season, like 35. So it's um maybe a little less than that, but uh yeah. So they had been completely gutted by COVID. So I was still in France when I interviewed for it. And I think at that time I benefited from the this mass exodus from the tourism industry, a lot of people who were leaving. But for me, I was lucky that I could live in France comfortably with her family without having to worry too much about money. And then all these tourism business uh businesses that are trying to get ready for um reopening 2021, 2022, that when this sort of wave starts happening um and they just need staff and everyone was super desperate. I definitely was able to leverage that. And I uh I got the job as uh the rentals manager for uh for that location, which was yeah, next big step for me.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Right. So what did that in a nutshell, what did that job entail for you?

SPEAKER_03 41:15

Uh that job was um basically overseeing the entire operations of the uh the rentals uh department for the local white horse branch. So um we dealt mostly with the German-speaking market. So we had probably say 80% of our clients were German-speaking or or Dutch, um German, Swiss, or Dutch was kind of the meat and potatoes for that.

SPEAKER_00 41:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 41:38

Yeah. So it was a big change for me because I'd just been I had been used to um American tourists, and the there was a pr a different approach you have to take sometimes as Europeans. Um again, fortunately, I had been living in Europe, so I did get a taste of that sort of different formality sometimes with the approach, and language barrier was starting to become a little less of an issue for me. I still don't speak German, but it was, you know, understanding where they were coming from. Uh first year there, we were only focusing on domestic stuff, uh, and not even domestic within Canada, just local Yukon people. And then uh once things started to open up, uh, eventually we got some people from outside of the Yukon, people from other parts of Canada. And then near the end of that first summer, we had our first uh European crowds, which was a nice dry run for the next year when things were really opening up and we were getting just crushed with people. So it was uh busy and a ton of fun.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

Wow. Yes, I've worked in the RV market myself, and I can attest to the unique challenges. And that was here in Perth actually years ago, and actually quite a high Europeans must be they love it. Yeah, yeah, it was the same here, largely European clients. But I will just take the opportunity to say to listeners that you know it is important for frontline staff to understand that different markets operate in different ways or have different expectations when it comes to customer service. And I think, yeah, because I can think back very clearly. And I mean, my years at um AJ Hackabungee, you know, sort of taught me this real quick. You know, if you have uh if you have a group of Americans come in that is very different to the next day's group of Swiss coming in or the next day's group of Japanese people coming in, and it will make your life easier working on the front line if you can understand how to interact with each of these markets pertinent to obviously the environment that you're working in to to relate to them in the manner that they expect to be related to. And obviously there's in the counter of that in that you know that they're traveling in Canada or Australia or New Zealand, and you know, they want a local experience, but there's got to be a sort of a a middle ground with that approach to customers and guests or clients from from different areas of the world. It really will make your life a little bit easier if you know how to engage.

SPEAKER_03 44:11

Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, there's a there's a line you have to tow as well with like, you know, especially people looking for, you know, I remember because we would hire a lot of German speaking staff, people who are coming from on working holiday visas or whatever, to speak with the German clients. And for most people, because RV is quite a technical thing, there's a lot of things you have to know to operate one safely and effectively. And so a lot of people were thankful to have a German speaker to sort of navigate the more difficult parts. And then there would occasionally be one it's like, oh, I left Germany to not be with other German people. So where are all the Canadians at?

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Yeah, yeah. I could keep going, but I won't. All right. So how long were you in that role for?

SPEAKER_03 45:01

Uh so I did that for uh three and a half years.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Thomas, is this seasonal again or year-round?

SPEAKER_03 45:09

So it was year round and it was a little more involved of a year round than uh normal. Like again, it was still like 70 hour 60, 70, 80 hour weeks in the summer. And then in the winter, you know, you can take a little bit of a break. But with the technical needs of an RV, you do need to uh we go through a process called defleeting. So you have to go through each and every RV. And for those who don't know RVs are made of hopes and bailing wire basically they don't they don't hold together super well. Everything's made of plastic.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

It's a lot of duct type.

SPEAKER_03 45:44

Exactly. And we're living in a place where it can get to minus 40. So yeah things break at that at that temperature regardless of you know how well built they are so you know we would spend a lot of time we'd get every vehicle gets put into the shop, gets warmed up, gets a very deep inspection. And there's a lot of admin in that side of things. So that was like sort of my day to day uh but I did get some time to sort of relax um I was probably putting in like 20 hours a week at that point but I was still getting a full salary so I really liked it. And I got some time to do some other things as well. So I started driving Northern lights tours as well just because I had time and I was looking for a bit of cash and those are a ton of fun. Yeah so and you know it's the northern lights are really no pun intended illuminating from a tourism perspective because it can really grab people and it it kind of gets gets you like yeah it can be really overwhelming to be I would see this little Mexican of Huela who would see the northern lights for the first time and she's like on the brink of tears just looking at them and then immediately I see her 18 year old grandson on her phone next to her so it takes you out of them takes you out of it quickly but like it's it was a very rewarding experience um to see that kind of stuff as well. And you know it's it was a good by this time the winter tourism market was really starting to gain traction. They the local DMO the industry association they've been putting in a ton of work and it was they were getting their markets from Japan, South Korea, Latin America, mostly Mexico, but the it had really taken off by that point. So I was seeing another market that I hadn't been exposed to before and I don't speak Japanese Korean or Spanish so it wasn't really I wasn't the most communicative with them but hand gestures help a lot.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

Exactly yeah but yeah no it was that was a ton of fun yeah right and so what you would oh so this is post-COVID obviously so this is post-COVID.

SPEAKER_03 47:57

Yeah this would have been uh I left that company uh in 2024 but I uh I made the decision that I wanted to go back to school and uh get my master's degree so I made the decision to leave that place which some people would call me crazy because earlier I said that I think there was a lot of people who thought I was pretty crazy for spending my tuition money on a trip. And then oh that kind of worked out and now you're bailing on it again and you're going to the place that it it all went wrong for you in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

Right. Okay. So talk to me about this your decision to do that then.

SPEAKER_03 48:29

Yeah like uh like I was saying it was um it was it's sort of made out of there's not really anywhere for me to go at the this point. Like the Yukon's a small town uh a small area for perspective it's larger than the state of California but there's only around 40,000 people who live there. It's very yeah it's basically the whole territory is and almost everyone lives in the main city of Whitehorse. So there's not a ton of room to go there. But um and I could be running a different tourism organization. I could get into something a little less corporate something more uh small I could start my own thing which is all great and everything but I kind of wanted a foundation uh to to build off of uh for that and you know give me some more options uh outside of industry potentially uh so I found this opportunity uh a place called Royal Roads University in Victoria and they have a master's program in tourism management and I kind of walked into that one the same way I walked into my original college experience of not quite sure what this is going to be. I think it's all positive for sure but um now I'm here and I've been doing it for the last uh this will be almost a year to the day that I've been uh I've been in it. I've enjoyed just about every bit of it. And you know while I'm down here I'm still working in tourism I've been doing tour guiding and I what I've really enjoyed about the master studies on tourism is there's a whole side of this industry that a lot of people get into it just because it's fun and they want to travel and they want to do stuff there's nothing wrong with that. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But there are very systemic issues that within the industry that need to be addressed and need to have need to be planned for uh the tourism industry is going to keep growing internationally there's a lot of projections that say that we're going to close to double our international tourism arrivals in the next several years and that's going to lead to a lot of issues of sustainability culture cultural presentation we have infrastructure issues we've got um uh regenerative issues we're at the crossroads of a lot of impactful nate um impactful nature of the industry didn't word that well but and I feel like the master's program is helping me sort of see that macro view globally um yeah it it's an interesting spot to be and I think a lot of people like I was talking to someone from my own DMO locally and uh I said oh yeah I'm doing my master's in tourism management and they're oh I didn't even know you could do that.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

I didn't even know you could get this is someone who works at a DMO just for listeners DMO being destination marketing office.

SPEAKER_03 51:23

Uh yes or management organization depending on where you get your definition from yeah yeah okay but yeah so there's a lot of things that you know industry is going to be involved in but can't solve on its own I would I would say so this the grad studies that I'm in is really sort of enlightening a lot of these issues for me.

SPEAKER_00 51:45

Right. Can you do you want to unpack that a little bit more what sort of I guess what issue if you had to pick one what issue sort of sticking out for you?

SPEAKER_03 51:54

Well I would say that I mean probably the most urgent is environmental sustainability and regenerative nature of tourism. You know, we obviously it's something that everyone has to reconcile with how they how they balance their ecological impacts. You know if you I'd love to go to Australia maybe in the winter but um I'd love to go to Australia one day. But it is something I have to consider. That's a long haul flight that's going to be very difficult to offset that that carbon impact. And I don't mean offset in the traditional matter of like just buying offsets or whatever. But you know you have to approach that I'd say that's obviously the most urgent one. But you know there are other things you know right now I'm doing some research on um how do destinations recover from a disaster or a crisis? You know how do you re-market for regaining your your destination's brand we had a fire in a forest fire in Jasper, Alberta one of common one of our biggest mountain tourist destinations it destroyed a third of the town and they've done a really great job of you know rebranding after the fire, ensuring safety and I mean in Australia as well you had your Black Summer just before COVID hit as well and the efforts that the DMO put in to ensure safety and get the messaging out there like there is a an academic study of what of how to best approach that and there's a lot of this tourism research that is incredibly useful and localized that industry operators destination marketing organizations destination management they can integrate with that. I don't think they're doing a very good job just globally certainly not in Canada of the tourism industry and academics in tourism sort of working together. Like I said there's people who don't even know you can be an academic in tourism.

SPEAKER_00 53:46

Yeah this is this is so interesting.

SPEAKER_03 53:49

I had a conversation with Professor Ann Hardy and we spoke about this a lot in um in our podcast discussion in that um intersection between academia and industry and you know academia doesn't always do a great job of you know it doesn't get a ton of respect either really I would say like I don't know if that's uh that's sort of just a my impression sort of thing but there's an inter interdisciplinarity which is a fun word to say within tourism like we have to draw from economics and culture and um uh social sciences and psychology and business and marketing and I think that like it lacks an identity of its own in a way um you know and a lot of people can become tourism researchers from other professions and maybe quite it's not quite as easy to go the other way for some people. Maybe I equate it to sort of there's also this association with sort of leisure and hedonism almost with tourism but crossovers with like really important topics like environmental protection and you know even just general human migration tourism plays a role in that I think of it like um yeah who Rod uh Roger Ebert is an American film critic. He so he's famous for uh he thought the video games were not considered a form of art. And it was kind of new media coming in and that kind of thing. And I kind of equate that to how tourism is viewed within some academic circles just because you know it's it's the association with leisure and hedonism that's not sort of serious social science, but how impactful it is and how impactful it's going to be as international arrivals expand. I think like we need people, we need smart people, we need leaders who are looking at these issues and smart people who are thinking of solutions to some of these massive massive problems in the global industry.

SPEAKER_00 56:00

Yeah. I completely agree 100% 200% even Thomas Well we we do and I've said it before on the podcast we need you know yeah smart people with their head and their heart in the right place to lead the tourism industry into the future with as you've said you know rising globally rising tourist numbers and then also at the same time increasingly important and urgent environmental issues that need to be addressed you know on a local scale but worldwide. So yeah it's an interesting time and I'm glad that there's people like you out there that are taking these issues seriously and you know for all intents and purposes going back to study for a couple of years is you know a sacrifice on your behalf.

SPEAKER_03 56:59

And there's certainly people in my inner circle who would very much agree with you. It was definitely a controversial decision at the time. Yeah we have an expression in the UConn and I don't know if it made it to other parts of the English speaking world but uh don't look don't look for the gold sell the shovels or something along those lines. So you know you can get you can get rich finding gold but you can get richer by selling the shovels to the guys who are looking for the gold. Being in the tourism industry in a a role where you're selling the shovels of building the industry around you and helping the people who are actually looking for the gold and finding that gold and polishing that gold if you want to really dive into the medical.

SPEAKER_02 57:56

Exactly there you go.

SPEAKER_00 58:00

Yeah well that's so true you know our tourism operators at the end of the day you know tourism is the tourism is our operators tourism is the hotel you stay in tourism is the airline they got you there tourism is the restaurants you eat in when you're in your destination tourism is the tours that you do or the activities that you do. And without those things then there is no draw to go to a destination or no ability to go to a destination if there's no way of getting there. So academia and industry professionals the whole reason for your existence should be to support the operators to to help them act in a sustainable way sustainable environmentally sustainable from a business perspective sustainable from a staff training and development perspective you know keeping your staff happy and keeping them around and keeping them learning and sustainable from a we want tourists to have a great time while they're here with as minimal impact as possible, hopefully learn a thing or two while they're here, take it back home with them and then be even better people when they go home.

SPEAKER_03 59:15

And absolutely I think that like the approach that I've been taking with my uh with people I hire in previous roles and and the approach I'm going to take in the future, you know, you just want people, not just your staff, I just I guess everyone that you work with to become the best versions of themselves and tourism's a really powerful lever for that. You know, when if going back to my time in uh with the RVs, you know, if I bring in a a German working holiday visa student or something like that and they've come in and I would want them to I would want another goal. Are you here to just have as much fun as possible, make some money and go on that's totally fine. Let's work toward those goals. But if you want to use this as like a way to learn English better or or you know build a career in tourism and use this as a launch pad to get back and think, all right, let's work with that goal in mind. Let's like let me schedule around that. And then same with guests as they come in you know you don't want to maybe don't outright ask them what is your goal with this vacation. Although it wouldn't be like I'm thinking of anything but that right now when I'm on my vacation.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:24

But um you know like maybe don't ask them directly but there's a reason they came there right yeah and and you can ascertain that type of information without having to ask the question I believe you know you just chat just um you know chat with guests and and you can work out you know pretty quickly you know what's gonna what is going to equal I've had a great time here. Yeah for them. And you're right that is different for everyone. Yeah so winding up here have you got sort of a vision for your future when you finish study?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:55

Do you know well have you obviously don't know what that's going to look like, but have you got an idea of what you want that to look like well I think unfortunately as much as I've been a booster for academia and tourism at least within Canada right now there's been a lot of cuts to um education uh postsecondary and tourism again possibly with this association of leisure and that kind of thing. It's uh one of the first things in the chopping block. So there's a lot of programs and not even just recently we had an election last year and there's been some budget measures that have been put in with the new government. Yeah, tourism education's been one of the first things cut so you know I can't walk out guaranteeing that I would like to contribute further to the Yukon's tourism ecosystem I would say I think my favorite part of it of any job I've had is the mentoring side and getting people excited about working in the tourism industry, especially in the Yukon. It's one of the I will say that I don't know if Canada is the best place or best country in the world, but I will say it's the best looking and I think I can get people excited about that and getting people built into this industry even if they don't end up making a career of it they can sort of see what's out there at the very least. So I want to I want to contribute to that sort of infrastructure whether that goes private sector again, which you know I would be fine with the public sector maybe having a little more of a broader impact or industry association or however I want to do it or even just going out on my own. I don't think there's a world where I'm going to ever just be doing one thing going home going to work at nine, coming home at five and not doing anything else.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:38

So Yeah. Yeah that probably didn't answer the question but No it did it did it yeah yeah uh well we know anyway that you will be lugging suitcases around at some point.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:50

Absolutely all right well thank you so much Thomas have you got anything you'd like to add before we sign off today I would say that um I feel like this is the time where you drop some fancy philosophical lines but uh yeah actually you know um you know if there are people who are considering joining the tourism industry or people who are in the tourism industry and don't know where to go um we talked about it a little bit uh in terms of you know getting out there just talking to people you know just being friendly and that kind of thing. One thing that that attitude helps develop is your leadership skills. I think leadership skills are massively undervalued and just being able to communicate with other people on a level playing field the story I will tell is I was very nervous about my own leadership abilities. I wasn't sure how I my instructions and how everything was being received and how my team viewed me as a leader. And then I was going back to Halloween on this one there was a Halloween it was a day just a normal working day Halloween I had a meeting so I couldn't dress up and be fun but I got to I got to work that day at um at the RV place and it's off season now things are winding down and I had two cleaners that I had hired and I said oh why aren't you dressed up for Halloween and they said check again and I saw them they had painted their faces with a beard that looks like mine.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:22

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:23

They had they had a clipboard which I always carried and a lanyard which I always carried and they had dressed as me for Halloween and I was just You don't do that with somebody that you disrespect. You don't do that with somebody you don't appreciate and that was sort of the moment of like okay I think I'm at least doing something right. I almost I was almost tearing up it was very very nice. So develop those leadership skills and maybe somebody will dress as you for Halloween.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:47

Well nobody's ever dressed as me. Maybe somebody out there will dress as me one day yeah you're exactly you're yeah 100% spot on there leadership is yeah a yeah it's it's crucial you know um I think I mean you've probably experienced this as well well no and no doubt you've experienced this but you know you it's very common in the tourism industry to go from one role to then maybe a a supervisory role and then but w with no real training or um any sort of professional development to you know you might be great as a frontline service team member and you know really know the product and really know the systems and know how to get it done but does that equate to you know being able to lead a team of frontline service operators isn't always the case but it that is often the the career projectory. And so I think um the industry could do a lot better at professional development for staff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:43

I think that's a big hole and it sounds like um that sort of career path that that you've had as well and the ecosystem within Australia is similar to what we have here. And you know the it's I don't think it's localized as a just Just broadly it's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:02

Yeah. And obviously and also, of course, I must say, you know, not localized either just to the tourism industry, but given that this is a podcast focused on the tourism industry, it's it's just it's just as prevalent in other industries. That's sort of putting people in a role that they're not necessarily ready for.

unknown 1:06:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:19

I don't want to prattle on either, but one last thing I would say is that I'm going back into formal education. That's also not for everybody. It's totally fine to start your own thing or you know, will build your way up. And that is one thing the tourism industry is great for is that you can have a very interesting and successful career, whatever successful means to you, without going through formal channels. You should always still develop, but it's not for everybody, the formal groups.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:52

Yeah, and thank you very much for making that point, because that's so true. And I even argue that point, you know, when it comes to um being a a school lever, you know. If you feel like going and doing a diploma or a degree in tourism is what is going to be comfortable for you, that was me. I felt like I needed that kind of couple of years to to understand the industry. But if that's not for you, again, a hundred ways to skin a cat. You you just you you do what's right for you, and our industry welcomes that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:24

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:25

All right, well, thank you, Thomas. This has been a real pleasure.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:28

Thank you. This has been a lot of fun. Have I represented Canada well?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:32

You have, yeah. I think I might have another Canadian on when the opportunity presents itself. All right, well, thank you again. I will um put your LinkedIn profile in the show notes so people can connect with you on there and and reach out and um, you know, network like we're telling everyone to do.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:48

All right, thanks again, Thomas.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:50

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:51

All right, see you later. Thank you so much to my new Canadian friend, Thomas Warrie. Like I said, you did a good job representing, and now I must have more Canadian guests on my podcast. Um that was a fantastic chat. And uh for listeners, I think that was a real masterclass on how to do interesting things in your career and how to make your career work for you. You know, balancing seasonal work is a real issue in many destinations worldwide in the tourism industry. And, you know, I've had a number of guests on the podcast now that have had to grapple with this or do currently grapple with this, and it's so interesting hearing the different methods that um that people use to balance that seasonal work. So thank you for being really open and honest in your conversation today, Thomas. Um, it's really interesting hearing about your view on the systemic issues that uh the tourism industry is facing globally, and also once again, um, that issue of the connect between academia and industry. So thank you everybody for listening. Thank you again to Thomas for taking the time to chat with me. And um if you've enjoyed this episode, then please share it with your colleagues or friends. As you know, I believe the tourism industry deserves to be seen as a reputable and viable career choice. And my aim is to use the podcast to help the tourism industry be seen in that light. If you'd like to, please connect with me on LinkedIn. You can look me up, Carmen Bold, or Tourism Matters Careers. Feel free to message me if you think you would be a good guest on the podcast or you know somebody that would. And of course, make sure you hit one of those buttons download, follow, share, all of the above. Until next time, let's remember that tourism matters. I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening.