Developing People in Tourism: Personal Development Project Stage 2

This project presents a student's comprehensive Personal Development Project (PDP) for the 'Developing People in Tourism' module. It comprises a self-reflective essay that analyzes the necessary skill sets for individual development within the tourism sector, drawing upon relevant theories and industry examples. The essay highlights the student's strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement, particularly focusing on team working, communication, and leadership abilities. Moreover, the project includes a detailed action plan outlining specific activities, timelines, and strategies to enhance personal development, such as chairing meetings, ensuring deadline adherence, coordinating tasks, and managing technology, with a focus on practical application and skill enhancement. The student reflects on how their strengths can aid in development and identifies actions to improve these areas.

Personal Development Project
Stage 2
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
1. Self-reflective essay that demonstrating an understanding of skill sets needed to develop
individuals within the tourism sector...........................................................................................3
2. Completed an action plan to outline my own personal development......................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
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INTRODUCTION
Personal development is referred as the ongoing process in which individuals assess their
qualities and skills, consider their aims and set goals accordingly in order to realise as well as
maximize their potential. It includes activities that enhance identity and awareness, built talent
and potential, develop human capital as well as facilitate employability, improve life quality and
contribute to realisation of aspirations and dreams (Bennett-Levy and Finlay-Jones, 2018). This
report covers a self-reflective essay that depicts an understanding regarding skill sets need to
develop individuals within tourism sector. Apart from this, it also includes an action plan that
outline own personal development by taking actions to improve the development areas.
MAIN BODY
1. Self-reflective essay that demonstrating an understanding of skill sets needed to develop
individuals within the tourism sector
Self-reflection is referred as the process to which an individual can grow his or her
understanding regarding who he or she is, what their values are and why they act and think in a
way they do. It is a kind of personal analysis that enable individuals to bring their life into
alignment with what they wish it to be. It is a way through which the individuals assess
themselves, their ways of working as well as the way they study. It helps an individual in
developing emotional self-awareness by asking themselves the important questions. Through
this, they can gain better understanding of their emotions, weaknesses, strengths as well as
driving factors. When individuals take time to reflect on their core values, it increases their
integrity (Côté, Turnnidge and Vierimaa, 2016). They are having clear understanding regarding
the values and put them at forefront after mind as well as strengthen their decisions.
By undertaking this module, I learnt many things about the skills required in travel and
tourism sector, my strengths and weak areas, and knowledge and learning about different other
areas. This reflection helped me in determining my areas of improvement which further enable
me to take appropriate actions to improve these. This help me in improving my team working
skills and enable me to work within the team effectively in coordination and cooperation with
other members of team. This module also helps in improving my another skills including
communication, listening skills, thinking abilities etc. which will further help in my future career
growth and development (McMichael, 2016).
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When working within tourism, it is very important for me to know my strengths as well as
areas of development as It help me in performing my duties and responsibilities effectively
(Maharaja, 2018). My effective skills help me in getting good position in the organisation and
leads it towards growth and success. It will also help me in my own personal and professional
development that fuels the growth of my career. By developing my skills, I will get opportunity
to get good employment in the tourism sector and accomplishing my predefined objectives of
life. In the module, there are various activities included along with theories and industry
examples. Through undertaking this module, my confidence level boost up and enable me to
perform my roles and responsibilities effectively (Ekaterine and Natalia, 2017). It also helps in
improving my leadership skills which help me in leading other members and accomplishing the
goal of the project within the specified time frame. Apart from this, different concepts related to
travel and tourism are also studied in the module. The learning that I get from undertaking this
module will it contribute to my career development in travel and tourism industry. This will help
me in getting good employment and attaining growth and success in my career. I am able to
identify my weak areas which will further help me in taking improvement actions in order to
improve them and attaining excellence in the areas that leads my career towards success.
2. Completed an action plan to outline my own personal development
Action plan is referred as a detailed plan that outline the actions which are required to
reach individual goals. It includes list of task that are required to complete in order to mitigate
the objectives. It segregates the process of reaching goes into some actionable tasks on the basis
of timeline. Based on the preferences and needs, this document can utilise to set individual or
multiple goals. It makes the monitoring progress easy, enable an individual to keep their skills
updated within the specified time frame. There are various strengths which I possess that help me
in performing my roles and responsibilities effectively (Frunză, 2017). However, by performing
this audit or from self-reflective team development indicator questionnaire, I realised that there
are some improvement areas which I need to work upon. For improving those areas, the action
plan is mentioned below which helps me in my personal development. This action plan includes
the activities which I will undertake to improve the development area along with the specified
time frame. The action plan for my personal development is mentioned below:
Action plan
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Activities that
require further
development
What action can you take to improve these
activities?
When do you think
you will be able to
put this action into
practice?
Chairing meetings  I will take support from an
experienced and knowledgeable chair
at the tourism organisation.
 I will also undertake three
observations of meetings in the travel
and tourism organisation.
 I will share chair meeting with a
‘lead’ chairperson.
 I will also undertake chairing a
meeting as well as obtain feedback
from the people who will be the
participants in it.
 I will work on the feedbacks that I
will get from the participants.
 within next 2
months
 within the next
six months
 within next 8
months
 within the next
ten months
 within next the
next 11
months.
Ensure group
adherence to
agreed deadlines
 I will try to frame clear aim and
objectives to ensure that group adhere
to agreed deadlines.
 I will also start to do voluntary tasks
and activities for non-profit
organisations to become a part of
group or team and help coordinate.
 I will start to take more participation
in group activities.
 Within next 3
months.
 Within the
next 5 months.
 Within next 7
months.
Coordinate dates,
venues and
meeting times
 In order to coordinate dates, venues
and meeting time, I will do part time
job as a team leader in any tourism
 Within the
next 7 months.
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organisation in order to polish this
skill.
 I will also take participation in
sessions of professionals regarding
coordinating meeting time, dates and
venues.
 Within the
next 4
months.
Manage
technology (e.g.,
PowerPoint)
 I will start studying Photoshop and
PowerPoint online.
 I will also have enrolled myself in
technical workshops or classes that
allow me to interact with experienced
instructors and help me in gaining
knowledge about PowerPoint.
 I will also subscribe to Technical
Sites and Magazines that will help me
in keeping in the loop with new
technological advancements.
 Within the
next 3 months
 Within the
next 5 months.
 Within the
next six
months.
Allocate individual
tasks
 I will allocate tasks to myself and will
do them individually.
 I will also learn some skills which
will enable me to perform task
individually.
 Within the
next 3 months.
 Within the
next 5 months.
Above mentioned are all the activities which I need to develop along with the actions that
help in improving these activities and the time frame within which the actions are put into
practice. Apart from these improvement areas, there are some strengths that help me in
performing the activities effectively and accomplishing goals (Hsu, Lee and Chen, 2017). These
strengths include strong research skills, creativity, negotiation skills, listening skills, effective
communication skills, thinking abilities, good leadership skills etc. which helps in performing
my all roles and responsibilities effectively when I get employment in the tourism sector. The
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action plan provided above consist of different actions for each activity which I will undertake
that helps me in improving my areas for development (Lancer and Eatough, 2018).
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report, it has been concluded that self-reflection help a person
in reflecting on their own learning which assist in determining the strengths and weakness and
taking improvement actions to improve weak areas. Self-reflection provides an opportunity to
the individual to develop their skills and competencies which will help in their future growth.
Action plan is a descriptive plan that includes actions which help in achieving goals. In order to
improve the weak areas, action plan help in reaching to required goals. It includes the action that
undertake to improve the activities within specified time frame.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journal
Bennett-Levy, J. and Finlay-Jones, A., 2018. The role of personal practice in therapist skill
development: a model to guide therapists, educators, supervisors and
researchers. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 47(3), pp.185-205.
Côté, J., Turnnidge, J. and Vierimaa, M., 2016. A personal assets approach to youth
sport. Routledge handbook of youth sport, pp.243-255.
Ekaterine, G. and Natalia, K., 2017. Impact of Time Management on Personal Development of
Master’s Degree Students. European Journal of Social Science Education and
Research, 4(6), pp.110-118.
Frunză, S., 2017. Ethical leadership, religion and personal development in the context of global
crisis. Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, 16(46), pp.3-16.
Hsu, C.Y., Lee, W.H. and Chen, W.Y., 2017. How to catch their attention? Taiwanese
flashpackers inferring their travel motivation from personal development and travel
experience. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 22(2), pp.117-130.
Lancer, N. and Eatough, V., 2018. One-to-one coaching as a catalyst for personal development:
An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of coaching undergraduates at a UK
university. International Coaching Psychology Review, 13(1).
Maharaja, G., 2018. The Impact of Study Abroad on College Students' Intercultural Competence
and Personal Development. International Research and Review, 7(2), pp.18-41.
McMichael, P., 2016. Development and social change: A global perspective. Sage Publications.
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