With the development of the tourism industry, the state has put forward new requirements for the supply of tourism talents. The article explores the optimization design of talent cultivation paths in the tourism industry under the vocational education system. In this paper, the association rule algorithm is used to carry out basic analysis and further optimization design. Then after analyzing the current status quo of talent demand in the tourism industry, the association between vocational education tourism courses and employment is analyzed using the association rule method. Finally, starting from the integration of industry and education, cross-border integration and the creation of an innovative tourism talent training base, we design a talent training path for the tourism industry to provide marketable talents for the construction and development of the tourism industry. In the correlation analysis of courses and internships, the tourism courses of Tourism Consumer Behavior, Introduction to Landscape Design, Tourism Project Management, Hospitality Management Information System, Tourism Economics, Intermediate Financial Accounting, and Sociology of Tourism are in good grades, which will be helpful for the senior internship.