Fifty years ago we dreamed of a future Age of Leisure but, in the 21st century, leisure means work.

Once the manufacturing workshop of the world, Britain is becoming the land of service industries. Travel is one of the biggest.

And it is getting more complicated by the day. Once we aspired to a week in Bognor, now we want a world trip from Berlin to Bogot , and all points between. We expect not just the travel tickets but all the right currencies, visas, insurance, health information, car hire, shopping opportunities and guides to the hottest nightclubs and the coolest veggie restaurants.

Rapid expansion and increasing complexity have driven up the need for education and training. Most FE colleges now make some provision for travel, leisure and tourism courses. But what is their role when the travel companies, as well as private colleges and trainers, run courses and produce self-study and distance learning packages, all at a wide range of prices?

The major high-street travel agents, such as Thomas Cook and Lunn Poly, take in about 2,500 Modern Apprentices each year. They train them in-house, or use a training provider, often the Travel Training Company.

TTC produces packages of training materials (self-study or tutor-led), provides trainers and is owned by the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA). British Airways also has its own training company, Chameleon Training and Consulting, providing training packages, courses and facilities. Large companies have their own career structure and attractive perks.

But travel agents are part of a price-slashing retail sector, squeezed by tight profit margins. And though larger companies offer training, the smaller ones often depend on employees and mature entrants to fund their own professional development.

A survey for the trade magazine Travel Weekly conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers 18 months ago showed that although turnover had increased since 1998 profit margins were down from 1.53 per cent to 1 per cent.

Starting pay is low, typically at pound;8,000 for junior travel consultants rising to an average of pound;16,000 for managers, whose salary levels have been falling. Average spending on training per employee fell from pound;254 to pound;233 and 28 per cent of respondents to the survey had no formal training strategy. Because of the low wages the industry is finding it difficult to retain workers (see the Neil Briggs case study, right).

But if there is a problem with retention there is still no real shortage of applicants. The industry is still glamorous, with opportunities for fast promotion, travel, discounted holidays and good pay for people with specialisms, such as business travel. As well as school-leavers, it attracts women returners and people wanting a career change. And, following panic staff-shedding after September 11, there are vacancies.

The problem is getting in when many smaller companies will only take people who already have experience or training.

The basic qualification is the ABTA Certificate. In the private sector, this can be tutor-led or done online with a training provider or by distance learning with a package by TTC. Both TTC and Chameleon provide fares and ticketing packages and there are also courses for tour operators, resort reps and airline cabin crew.

Private colleges provide the standard courses or combinations of courses with other business, computer and personal skills. Prices vary from a few hundred pounds for a 60-hour self-study pack up to pound;4,000 for a six-month intensive, tutor-led course aimed at fast tracking people into well-paid jobs.

For those who can afford them, the private courses can be a good investment. Clive Rawson, head of travel at Brighton and Hove College of Business and Travel, is enthusiastic about the quality of the Chameleon packages and his students have access to high quality technology. He reports that many students are offered good jobs by big companies like Virgin Atlantic before they have even completed the course. “The industry needs a fresh injection of qualified staff, and it is people like us providing it.”

So can public sector colleges compete when their funding is strictly targeted? Belinda Davenport, a travel consultant who also works in further education, believes they can but they have to be radical. “A large proportion (of the NVQ travel services course) is doing the job and getting assessed on it. FE colleges can be very effective if they have their own travel agency and large groups of 50 or so.”

Colleges should recognise their strengths, she added. Not only do they employ people with industry experience, but they also have special needs skills, such as deaf awareness, and they are used to dealing with large groups.