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Reimagining Tourism through Human Capital Development

May 6, 2019 by PressEditor

“Reimagining Tourism through Human Capital Development” written by Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett.

Around the world today tourism processes, tools, structures, systems and actors are being radically reviewed, reorganized and remade. In other words, tourism is being reimagined. What this means is destinations across the globe must find innovative methods to remain relevant and viable in this increasingly competitive industry.

Here in Jamaica, through strategic policy programmes and initiatives, we have been playing our part in this reimagining exercise in a bid to thrive in this space. Arrivals and earnings continue to hit records with 1.7million visitors (stopover and cruise combined) coming to our shores and spending USD1.2billion within the first four months of 2019; and the sector’s contribution to the country’s GDP now stands at 9%. Despite our continued successes we have never been complacent and seek to improve on this record growth.

A major component in the reimagining process is our human capital development strategy. This is a critical area to develop as our people remain our most iconic attraction. They represent the driving force behind our continued success and we recognize that to remain top of mind in the market and maintain our competitive advantage we must build our human capital by training and certifying them so as to increase their stackable credentials. This is why we have run the gamut from High School, through Tourism Sector workers and now into the realm of Graduate studies.

Hospitality and Tourism Management Programme

Last year we launched the first ever Hospitality and Tourism Management Programme (HTMP) in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information. The HTMP is a unique certification programme for high schools offered by the American Hotel and Lodging Educational Institute (AHLEI), which will allow students to gain entry-level qualifications in tourism as well as Associate Degrees in Customer Service and is recognized by the Jamaica Customer Service Association (JaCSA). This is a two year program currently offered in 33 High Schools across Jamaica with a cohort of 350 students now and will be expanded to 650 students by 2020.

Jamaica Centre of Tourism Innovation

The Jamaica Centre of Tourism Innovation (JCTI), was launched in 2017 as a pathway to professional certification in the sector. Its mandate is to identify competent workers in the industry who are not certified and also graduates from tertiary institutions who have theoretical knowledge but no practical experience. This programme will allow the workers of the sector to achieve mobility in the workspace while being effectively positioned to command professional advancement.

The JCTI, which was established with local and international organizations, is also on target to train 8,000 tourism workers over the next five years.

In April of last year, over 150 persons graduated from the JCTI with American Hotel and Lodging Educational Institute (AHLEI) and NVQJ Certification. While in November, over 300 persons received certification in tourism related fields including: 14 Certified Hospitality Educators; 9 Certified Hospitality Instructors; 17 Culinary Tutors; 12 Culinarians and Pastry Chefs; 20 Bartender Trainers and over 200 Bartenders.

In addition, we have established a program to certify workers in the entertainment sub-sector of our Hotels with 26 workers already achieving certification from the inaugural Tourism Linkages Network’s DJ Capacity Enhancement Training Program.

Graduate School of Tourism

With the changing technologies and modalities in the global tourism industry, the focus of talent development must extend beyond traditional areas and now consider the emerging skill requirements of an increasingly differentiated and segmented tourism sector. We recognize that even though tourism is a highly labor-intensive sector, the majority of the tourism-related jobs available are deemed to require low to medium-level technical skills and tend to offer relatively limited prospect for economic mobility. Consequently, the sector may not be viewed as attractive by a large number of people seeking high-skilled jobs.

The future of tourism lies in the manipulation and exploitation of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) capabilities such as big data, big data analytics, blockchain technologies, the Internet of Things, robotics, etc. We therefore need to urgently capitalize on the opportunities for high-skilled employment that are being generated in the ICT-related fields in tourism.

Within this context, we continue to identify the relevant skillsets needed to fill jobs in the evolving tourism sector with the anticipation that these skillsets will be translated into curricula that can be implemented as professional higher education programmes by tertiary institutions in Jamaica.

This is why I recently made a pitch at a function at the University of the West Indies for the institution to establish a School of Tourism. It will specialize in emerging areas, such as resilience-related studies, climate management, project management, tourism management, tourism risk management, tourism crisis management, communication management, tourism marketing and branding, monitoring and evaluation, sustainable tourism policies and tourism entrepreneurship. The University of the West Indies (UWI) should have its first-ever Graduate School of Tourism established at its Western Jamaica Campus by 2020.

Conclusion

We are doing this level of human capital development to not only reimagine the sector but influence the labour market arrangements, by professionalizing the sector and creating a cadre of workers that are qualified, certified and can be classified. Tourism workers will now be able to attract remuneration based on their certification and this is the surest way of securing tenure.

Building the capacity of our workers to be more innovative in this global industry is indeed the future of tourism. As we anticipate even further growth with more hotel rooms and more visitors, our workers will be the driving force in meeting these increased demands.

MEDIA CONTACT: Jamaica Ministry of Tourism, Corporate Communications, 64 Knutsford Boulevard, Kingston 5, Tel: 920-4926-30, Fax: 920-4944

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Filed Under: Travel & Tourism Tagged With: capitalize, GDP, Jamaica, JCTI, ministry, tourism, workers

Bartlett welcomes Tourism Graduate School for 2020

March 22, 2019 by Forimmediaterelease

Jamaica Tourism Minister, Hon Edmund Bartlett has welcomed the establishment of a Graduate School of Tourism by 2020, which will be based at the University of the West Indies’ Western Campus.

“This project has been a vision of mine for many years and to see this vision now become a reality under the leadership of Professor Dale Webber, Principal of the University of the West Indies augurs well for tourism and our human capital development strategy.

The graduate school of tourism will be an ideal complement for the training and certification that is already being done through our Jamaica Centre for Tourism Innovation which is the institute we established for professionalizing the industry so workers can have their competencies recognized through certification” said Minister Bartlett.

The Jamaica Centre for Tourism Innovation’s (JCTI’s) focus is on certifying workers in the sector to the highest level, which means that they will be able to go anywhere in the world and match their qualifications with the best there is.

To date, JCTI has certified in excess of 600 persons. They include Certified Hospitality Educators to deliver the AHLEI programs; Certified Hospitality Supervisors; tutors for the ACF certification programs; over 22 chefs, including Executive Chefs, Sous Chefs, Culinarians and Pastry Culinarians.

The announcement was made at the University of the West Indies’ Western Campus official ground breaking. The University of the West Indies (UWI) offers world class, accredited higher education programs to Jamaica, the region and the globe.

The new site, which will be located at Barnett Oval in Montego Bay, aligns with the University’s commitment to increase participation in tertiary and higher education whilst strengthening their partnership opportunities with stakeholders in Western Jamaica.

Principal of the UWI, Professor Dale Webber, in welcoming the new graduate school of tourism said, “What separates the U.W.I from other Universities is our graduate studies and research so we see the Global Resilience and Crisis Management Centre, which is currently housed at our Mona campus, as part of the School of Tourism portfolio.
Now we have a new vehicle at this Western Jamaica campus Barnett site to establish the school and offer tourism at a higher level with Masters and Phd programs.

“This is a monumental step towards a total reimaging of tourism, where we will be able to have workers trained and certified at the highest levels. With this higher level of training and certification, they will be able to not only meet the demands of an ever-changing global industry but will be able to demand more in terms of jobs and compensation,” added Minister Bartlett.

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