This free online tourism course provides the skills travel agents use to make journeys pleasant, safe and exciting.

This tourism course provides an overview of the main topics and terminology important to the travel and tourism industry. We first compare various types of flights and explain the distinction between ‘transit’ and ‘transfer’. We then go over the different types of transit. The course defines terms like ‘stopover’, ‘open jaw’ ticket, ‘one-way’ and ‘round trip’. We also discuss jargon like 'end-on-end’, ‘circle’ and ‘side journey’.

Our next section teaches you about fare basis, types of fares and the reservation booking designator (RBD). We go over fare class indicators like seasonality, location or passenger type. We lay out the principles of reservation and ticketing in the airline sector. This tourism course then compares online and offline reservations and examines different types of air ticket coupons.

We discuss the various types of tickets and examine global distribution systems (GDS), the Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCO) and Society International Telecommunications Aeronautics (SITA). Our final section covers interline agreements between airlines and identifies the types of billing and governing carriers in interline. We define the jargon and terms used in the airline industry in detail. This tourism course makes travel simpler by explaining its dynamics and suits globetrotters and aspiring travel agents.