Postgraduate diploma in tourism and travel management, IITTM

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Give a professional sheen to India’s famed tradition of hospitality with this course. Institute of Career Studies lends a hand .

The Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management (IITTM) was established in 1983 in New Delhi under the Union ministry of tourism and culture, primarily to develop human resources for the ministry. It is a centre of excellence for education, training and research in tourism, travel and cargo management. The Bhubaneswar centre was started in 1996 to serve eastern India. The institute also has centres in Gwalior and Goa.

IITTM offers postgraduate diploma in management programmes (PGDM) at three locations. The main campus at Gwalior conducts PGDM in tourism and travel, in services and in international business. Bhubaneswar has PGDM in tourism and travel and in international business, while New Delhi offers PGDM in tourism and leisure.

The PGDM in travel and tourism is accredited by AICTE and is equivalent to MBA. It focuses on management of businesses in tourism and travel sectors. The 12-month full-time course is open to graduates from all disciplines.

IITTM also offers short-duration programmes designed to provide state-of the-art training to working executives who completed their formal education some years ago. The institute also conducts training courses and capacity building programmes for service providers sponsored by the Union ministry of tourism. The institute has conducted many tailor-made programmes for state and central government departments / autonomous bodies at their centres in Gwalior, Bhubaneswar, Delhi and Goa as well as in places like Ahmedabad, Konark, Itanagar, Port Blair, Guwahati, Kohima and Agra.

Reputed companies from all over India visit IITTM each year to recruit students for summer internship and final placements. The placement committee maintains a constructive relationship with potential employers and encourages them to interact with students frequently for a better understanding.

The notification for the courses is advertised in leading newspapers in February. The application form can be downloaded from the website (www.iittm.org).

Send the filled-in form along with a demand draft of Rs 700, favouring the director of IITTM and payable at Gwalior, to the Chairman, Admissions, IITTM, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, Govindpuri, Gwalior-474011.

Eligibility:-

Candidates should be graduates in any discipline with 50 per cent marks in aggregate from a recognised Indian university.

Those appearing in the final year of the qualifying exam can also apply.

Entrance exam
Admission to the postgraduate diploma in tourism and travel management (PGDTM) is on the basis of performance in an aptitude test held in the second week of May, group discussion (GD) and personal interview (PI). The test is conducted in Gwalior, Bhubaneswar, New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Guwahati, Patna, Mumbai, Calcutta and Jaipur.

Shortlisted students have to appear for GD and PI in the third week of June in Gwalior, Bhubaneswar and New Delhi. IITTM accepts CAT scores as well.

Pattern of exam
The written test has sections on English, quantitative ability, reasoning and awareness of national and global issues. The 200 questions have to be answered in 150 minutes. Wrong answers carry negative marks.

How to prepare
To prepare for the vocabulary and English usage section, you must increase your knowledge of the English language. Try to focus on the general meaning and structure of the sentence. Prepare from books by Thomas and Martinet, Nesfield, Wren and Martin. You could also study from Objective English by Prasad, and English is Easy by Chetan Anand. Do some usage and comprehension exercises from the SAT guide by Barron.

For maths, you could prepare from books by Krishna, R.D. Sharma and from Objective Maths published by Tata McGraw Hill. You can brush up on your reasoning skills from Verbal and Non- verbal Reasoning by R.S. Agarwal and books by Edgar Thorpe.

Questions in the general knowledge section test your awareness of current situations in India and around the world. Read the newspapers daily and maintain a scrap book of major events. You could also brush up on your GK from current affairs magazines, the Manorama Yearbook or the CSR Yearbook.

Sources: The Telegraph (Kolkata, India)