Planning trips, guiding visitors, and selling whole cities and countries as destinations, from your hometown walking tour to a three-week trip across Asia.
Top pay: highest pay, longest training
Tourism Bureau Director: Leads a city or state tourism organization that brings visitors, conventions, and events. Typical pay $150k.
Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship
Tour Director: Travels with a tour group for days or weeks, managing every detail of the trip. Typical pay $55k.
Luxury Travel Designer: Designs high-end custom trips like private safaris, yacht charters, and once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Typical pay $75k.
Destination Marketing Manager: Markets a city, state, or region to travelers for a tourism bureau. Typical pay $85k.
Tourism Research Analyst: Studies travel data to learn who visits, how much they spend, and how to attract more visitors. Typical pay $70k.
Corporate Travel Manager: Manages travel policies, budgets, and safety for a company's traveling employees. Typical pay $98k.
Tour Operator Owner: Owns a company that designs and runs tours, from city bike tours to international trips. Typical pay $90k.
Medical Tourism Coordinator: Helps patients travel for medical care, arranging hospitals, flights, hotels, and translators. Typical pay $58k.
Tour Product Manager: Designs new tour packages for a travel company, from routes to hotels and activities. Typical pay $72k.
Starter: fastest way in
City Tour Guide: Leads visitors around a city, historic site, or attraction and brings its stories to life. Typical pay $37k.
Food Tour Guide: Leads groups to taste local foods at restaurants, markets, and bakeries. Typical pay $36k.
Travel Reservation & Ticket Agent: Books and changes travel for airlines, rail lines, bus companies, and tour operators. Typical pay $40k.
Visitor Center Specialist: Helps travelers at visitor centers and welcome centers with maps, events, and recommendations. Typical pay $34k.
Travel Advisor: Plans and books trips, cruises, and vacation packages for clients. Typical pay $48k.
Passport & Visa Expediter: Helps travelers and companies get passports and visas fast by handling paperwork and consulate visits. Typical pay $50k.
Travel Writer: Writes about destinations for magazines, guidebooks, websites, and newsletters. Typical pay $50k.
Group Tour Coordinator: Plans trips for groups like school bands, church groups, and senior clubs. Typical pay $47k.
Licensed Battlefield Guide: Leads private tours of the Gettysburg battlefield after passing one of the hardest guide exams in the country. Typical pay $45k.
Airboat Tour Captain: Drives loud, flat-bottom airboats with giant fans through Florida Everglades marshes or Louisiana swamps, showing tourists alligators and birds. Typical pay $42k.
Accessible Travel Specialist: Plans trips for travelers with disabilities, checking wheelchair-friendly rooms, transport and tours so the whole trip works. Typical pay $48k.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.