The Seasonality of Tourism

The seasonality of tourism is an interesting thing. In Australia, we’re lucky in that we can relocate and follow the seasons, so we don’t really have to have an off-season if we’re willing to move. There’s always somewhere busier, somewhere warmer, somewhere cooler, somewhere heading into whale season, snow season, dry season or summer. If we’re not willing or able to relocate, most of us have other options for earning money along the way anyway.

I got back into guiding after the pandemic. It was actually great for me because pre-pandemic guides had all gone and got new jobs. I taught through those crazy few years. So, I was more than happy to be flown around the country, running all types of tours and itineraries where guides were lacking. I packed up my house, moved into my van and wandered to where the work and adventures took me.

I read something the other day about the retention of staff in tourism, especially because of the seasonality of the industry. From my perspective, I’m not sure tourism necessarily needs to be a lifetime job for those of us who work on the road. The reality is that once people have families, for example, some will want to spend time with their kids rather than constantly heading away for work. Others will decide they want more stability, less travel, a different rhythm or just something new. But that doesn’t mean tourism isn’t a great job. I just don’t think everything needs to be forever.

Some jobs can be exactly what we need for a particular season of our lives. They can teach us, stretch us, introduce us to people, take us to extraordinary places and shape who we become. Then, at some point, we might decide to move on. That doesn’t make the experience less valuable or mean something has gone wrong. The coolest people I know seem to have lived multiple lives, personalities or careers just in the last ten years. They’ve taught, travelled, started businesses, shut them down, studied something completely different, moved across the country, disappeared overseas, come home, changed direction and become another version of themselves. Gone are the days where we need to be one thing for a lifetime. That has never been my thing!

I remember having a performance and development meeting with a principal once, and she asked me about my short-term and long-term goals. The short-term goals were super easy for me to answer. Learn this program. Understand this type of behaviour and how to work with it better. Get better at teaching multiple different levels of maths in the same classroom! Basically, develop particular skills and learn more. There is always something I want to learn or improve.

Then she asked me about my long-term goals. I was completely stumped. I actually asked her what other people normally said. She told me that people want permanency. I half laughed and half convulsed with disgust at the thought and replied with something along the lines of, “Oh, I can’t think of anything worse. Being attached to one place for the rest of my life?” I’m not sure that was quite the professional development answer she was expecting. I quit that job not long afterwards.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting permanency. For some people, that security is exactly what they want and what allows them to build the life that suits them. But the reality is that, in a lot of industries and countries, people seem to chase this idea of permanency as though it’s automatically the ultimate goal. I’m grateful I live in Australia and my healthcare isn’t reliant on my job. I’m grateful I haven’t been brainwashed, or brought up in a society or family, that pushed me particularly hard towards the stock-standard human life track. Get a degree. Get a job. Meet someone. Have a family. Buy a house. Stay put. La-di-da.

There’s nothing wrong with that life if it’s genuinely the one you want. It just isn’t the only one available. My life is mine to create, and working as a guide serves its purpose for me, right here, right now. I love so much about it. I get to travel, meet people, spend ridiculous amounts of time outdoors, learn about the places I move through, have brilliant conversations and experience parts of Australia that many people only visit once in their lives. If I’m happy in a job, I stay. When I’m not, I leave or take a break. I’ve got businesses to build, books to write and more adventures to be had!

Sometimes there’s a period in between jobs where I’m done. I then wonder if the problem is the job, the environment, the workload or me. Most times I just need a break, a different trip or a different rhythm. In life, sometimes things just genuinely stop fitting. And honouring that is an important part of life for me. So maybe the big question isn’t always, “How do we keep staff?” Maybe it’s also, “How do we create an environment that people love to be a part of?”

How do businesses create conditions that encourage people to stay, without expecting them to stay forever? How can perceptions be changed to allow people to move in and out of an industry without treating it like some kind of failure of commitment? I really think it’s important for staff to truly know their why. I also think it’s important for businesses to love their staff and let them go when the time is right. Some people want to work hard, live hard and travel hard, with a mix of intense work and long breaks. Some want to relocate every season and experience a world outside their bubble. The list is endless, and that’s the beauty of being able to create the life we want to live.

For me, one of the great things about this kind of work is that if I don’t want to work for a bit, I can take some time off for myself to do my own thing. I don’t necessarily want my entire identity or security wrapped around one job. I reckon some of the most interesting people would have the most bizarre résumés. They’d have huge gaps - mine has so many, created by overseas adventures that I don’t regret in the slightest! They’ve changed careers - fun fact, I used to be a club bouncer! They’ve taken jobs that don’t seem connected - I also worked in a shoe shop, and I hate shoes! They’ve gone travelling, returned to study and followed curiosity instead of climbing one neat and boring ladder.

Sometimes, when I’m running a tour, stories come out. I talk about different jobs I’ve had, countries I’ve lived in and things I’ve done. And more often than not, someone’s mouth will be open while they try to figure out my age. I’ve crammed a lot into this one little wild life I’ve had so far, and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon. I laugh and tell them that I’m actually 85 years old. ;)

Maybe that’s part of why interesting people are interesting. Maybe it’s even part of why we’re happy. A strange résumé can tell you a lot about someone. It can show adaptability, curiosity, courage and an ability to start again. It can show that they’re comfortable enough with change to embrace a new pathway rather than clinging to something simply because they’ve already invested time in it.

Lifelong learning is important, and I think staff being comfortable enough with change to explore new directions can actually be a huge gain for industries too. People leave and learn things. They gain skills somewhere else. They work with different people, different systems and different cultures. They see other ways of doing things. If they return, they often come back with more to offer than they had when they left. And even if they don’t return, that doesn’t automatically mean the industry failed them. Sometimes people simply grow in a different direction, and let’s be honest, we gain so many skills from guiding that there are plenty of (albeit less exciting and fun) jobs we can move into!

I feel like life is about creating as many versions of it, and ourselves, as we want. We’re allowed to change our minds. We’re allowed to want something deeply for a few years and then want something else. We’re allowed to build a career, walk away from it, come back to it, change industries entirely or create some strange combination of things that only really makes sense to us. Maybe tourism is someone’s forever job. Maybe it’s someone else’s five-year adventure. Maybe it’s the thing that leads them somewhere completely unexpected.

I don’t think the value of a job can be measured by how long someone stays, and I don’t think a person’s career should be measured by how straight and predictable the line looks on their résumé. For me, life has always felt much more interesting when I leave room for the next version of myself to turn up without knowing what that might look like.

But that’s just me.