Careers Beyond the Counter: Tourism Pathways

Build the Local Workforce and Support the Community

Businesses can join the Visitors Bureau’s Careers Beyond the Counter (CBC) tourism program to help connect Dare County high school students with career opportunities in the Dare County tourism industry.

Companies are invited to share whether they can offer Internships or provide managerial-level presenters for the Speaker’s Bureau.

Participation gives Dare County high school students direct exposure to career options within the local tourism industry, which represents $1.8 billion.

Hands-on learning is one of the strongest ways for young people to explore what they may want to pursue and how they should shape their future studies. The local tourism industry can serve as both a starting point and a place where students discover broad professional possibilities close to home.

Internships

If your business does not already have an internship program in place, that is okay. Consider the following points when designing an intern role that works for your company and gives the student a valuable experience.

1. Who within your organization will guide the student’s work and serve as the primary contact?

2. What days and hours make sense for both the business and the student? Tip: A consistent schedule can make it simpler to organize meaningful intern activities.

3. Will the internship be paid? Will travel to and from the workplace be reimbursed? These are not required, but they can help. The key is to communicate clearly from the beginning.

4. Students are participating through the high school’s Career & Technical Education (CTE) program. Internships should therefore align with the career pathway the student is studying. For example, students in Business Administration may be interested in areas such as marketing, advertising, finance, public relations, social media and entrepreneurship.

Other CTE pathways that connect closely with tourism include Arts, A/V & Communications, such as graphic design, web design and video production, as well as Hospitality & Tourism, Culinary, including lodging, restaurants, retail and service providers.

Front desk roles at hotels, as well as hostess, cashier, greeter and customer service positions, are essential to hospitality businesses and are often frontline roles. However, Careers Beyond the Counter is designed to expand students’ views beyond jobs they may already have experienced through summer work.

When possible, internships should be created with that broader purpose in mind, helping students see how frontline or counter roles relate to other career paths inside your company.

1. Can the student take responsibility for a specific project during the internship? Projects like this can help students describe their work when preparing class credit reports at the end of the term.

2. If you have questions or need support, reach out to the Visitors Bureau. The team can connect you with the Dare County School’s Intern Coordinator or a Career Development Counselor; each high school has one. They are helpful resources and easy partners to work with.

Speaker’s Bureau

The Speaker’s Bureau offers presenters a meaningful way to engage with students directly in the classroom. These classroom visits have resulted in companies recruiting student workers.

In the classroom setting, students may feel more comfortable asking questions than they would at a job fair. Speakers can also share their own career stories in a personal way, making the path feel tangible while showing students the variety of roles available across the tourism industry.

Company presenters should match the CTE pathways available at the high school. For example, a Food & Beverage Manager would fit well with a Hospitality & Tourism, Culinary CTE class, while a Marketing Manager could be a strong match for a Business Administration CTE class. The CTE pathways and examples of tourism-related professions are shown in the chart on the following page.

Businesses can take part in the Speaker’s Bureau in 1 of 2 ways: provide speaker contact information for each CTE pathway, or share the contact information for the person at your company who will coordinate speakers and identify which CTE paths your speakers can address.

Questions can be directed to the Visitors Bureau by phone, or emailed to love@outerbanks.org. Thank you for supporting this important program.