Tourism task force offers short competency program

Who says a high school graduate has no chance of competing in the global arena? With the brief competency assessment program offered by the tourism task force, even high school graduates can have the chance to become a hotel personnel around the world.

The Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) tourism task force in cooperation with Tourism Industry Board Federation Inc. (TIBFI), and Philippines-Australia Quality Technical Vocation Education and Training Project (PAQTVET II) will soon come out with a training and assessment program for tourism industry personnel, especially the front liners in the sectors, like front desk in-charge, housekeeping workers, waiters and waitresses, tour guides, travel services personnel, among others, to improve their service standards to a global competitive level.

In the absence of tourism industry Business Support Organization (BSO), the Australian government through the PAQTVET II project, tapped the CCCI to oversee the implementation of the program in Cebu, in order to create a pool of competent tourism industry workers.

Together with the TIBFI, PAQTVET, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), CCCI's tourism task force headed by Alice Queblatin will formulate different modules of competency training and assessment to provide Cebu's tourism industry's front liner workers an internationally registered skilled worker in this particular field.

"This is like an ISO certification for the tourism industry rank-and-file personnel. If they can pass this competency assessment they can be in demand both here and abroad, therefore has now the confidence to increase their salary packages," said Queblatin, who is also the president of Cebu Association of Tour Operators (CATO).

She said even a high school graduate can take a brief program to be offered by TESDA accredited institutions and take a hands-on on brief training program, on which modules will be personally developed by tourism stakeholders themselves.

The CCCI, PAQTVET, and TIBFI signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) recently to officially start the competency training and assessment program in the next few months.

This coming May of this year, about 30 hotel and tourism industry personnel will be given this competency assessment test including new graduates and current hotel workers, Queblatin said.

According to Sonya Casey PAQTVET II curriculum specialist, there are 15 qualifications on the pipeline. Each qualification has several modules, these also include; Food and Beverage (F&B) service personnel, event management, sales operators, among others.

Cebu will be the first to implement this kind of certification assessment, while it is vying as one of the preferred tourism destination in Asia.

Aside from merely implementing this project, CCCI will also urge the hotel operators in Cebu to commit that their workers must undergo the training and must be certified, said CCCI official Teodoro Locson.

"Right now, it is difficult to look for competent rank-and-file or front liner workers, especially for big and five star hotels and resorts. They have to spend huge amount of money for training, and yet eventually suffers from brain drain," Locson said.

This time, hotels and resorts do not need to waste their time and money in training personnel to provide world class service as this particular program will take care of training and certification, for a very minimal fee.

The TIBFI, through the Industry Working Group (IWG), has oversight over the full range of industry participation in TESDA's Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET). This includes, competency standards development, curriculum development, training delivery modalities, registration and accreditation and assessment and certification.