Speed up training says TCT

BANGKOK, 9 April 2013: Tourism Council of Thailand has urged the new Tourism and Sports Minister, Somsak Phurisrisak, to concentrate on upgrading tourism’s human resources in the lead-up to the ASEAN Economic Community due to start December 2015.

TCT president, Piyaman Tejapaibul, said the council needs the tourism minister to follow up any projects approved by the  Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board’s Joint Public and Private Sector Consultative Committee to move the tourism industry forward.

“In addition, personnel skills in the hotel industry need to be improved. English skills have been identified as a priority. We need to train 100,000  employees a year over three years up from 50,000.”

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TCEB builds bullish targets

BANGKOK, 8 March 2013: Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau adjusted its 2013 fiscal year visitors and revenue targets for MICE business , the bureau reported earlier this week.

TCEB board member and acting president, Thongchai Sridama, said the bureau has revised MICE visitors and revenue to grow by 5% to 10%.

“This year, TCEB targets 940,000 MICE visitors generating Bt88,000 million in revenue compared with the former goal of 792,000 visits and Bt63,920 million in revenue.”

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Open house at LP school

LUANG PRABANG, 8 March 2013: Lanith Luang Prabang (LLP) recently hosted an open house to introduce its new hospitality complex and training centre to some 150 guests, including Lao ministry officials, government department directors, local business owners, and a delegation from Luxembourg along with dignitaries from several neighbouring countries.

Luxembourg Embassy chargé d’affaires Marc Franck and Ministry of Planning and Investment deputy director general, Houmphanh Soukprasith, cut the ribbon to the Luxembourg government-supported facility, which aims to advance service quality in Laos.

Lanith chief technical advisor Peter Semone said: “This open house affords Lanith the opportunity to present Luxembourg’s innovative approach to hospitality training and education. Most important is to handover a fully operational, successful, sustainable social enterprise to Laos.”

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Kiwi specialists turn 100% pure

SINGAPORE, 7 March 2013: Tourism New Zealand will overall its Kiwi Specialist training programme for travel agencies to regain lost ground in Asia’s highly competitive outbound travel market.

As one of the early adopters of online training modules that recognise  travel agents as specialists, New Zealand’s popular programme was copied and in some instances bettered by competitive destinations.

Over time, travel agencies have tended to move business to Japan and China that have a greater appeal to Asian visitors particularly for shopping, food and beverage and heritage attractions.

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PATA to start an academy

BANGKOK, 28 January 2013: Pacific Asia Travel Association is setting up an academy to broaden knowledge about global trends for seasoned management of tourism-related firms.

“Because Bangkok is a centre for the region for travel and tourism, we decided to start a PATA academy here. It is a six-day course for rising stars, mid-to-senior managers who want to have an intense expansion of their knowledge about global trends, travel and tourism,” PATA CEO Martin Craigs said.

PATA hopes to attract about 30 registrations course on a quarterly basis. The launch date for the educational programme has not yet been set by Mr Craigs who said it was up to the executive boards which will convene 2 February to decide on a time-frame.

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2013 starts with higher wages

BANGKOK, 2 January 2013: Thailand’s labour force gains from a new minimum wage level that came into effect 1 January, but the Tourism Council of Thailand says the government needs to support the tourism industry with more training.

The daily minimum wage level is now set at Bt300, nationwide, after the government introduced the rule in seven provinces from 1 April last year. The pilot phase was carried out in Bangkok, Samut Prakan, Samut Sakhon, Pathum Thani, Nakhon Pathom, Nonthaburi and Phuket.

However, labour in provinces outside of the scheme were already adopting the Bt300 minimum level, unofficially, in most categories except for tourism and hotels.

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THA sets up training

BANGKOK, 12 November 2012: Thai Hotels Association will host a training course on marketing and sales, 11 December, at the Siam@Siam Design Hotel & Spa for both members and non-members.

The management and sales development training programme will be conducted in English by Dr Edward Dramberger, an expert in the hotel and tourism fields.

Training will cover five areas namely sales productivity, developing selling techniques, study consumer behaviour, studies of the current situation and selling opportunities and a case study.

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CRDT takes over training centre

KRATIE, 30 October 2012: Cambodian Rural Development Team has taken over Le Tonle, this month, a tourism training centre in Stung Treng from Geneva-based Tourism for Help and plans to move it to Kratie.

TTR Weekly’ is “on location” this week covering tourism developments in Kratie Cambodia mainly focused on communities.

CRDT executive director, Sun Mao told TTR Weekly that the agency was doing a feasibility study on moving the centre to Kratie in the future.

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Free Korean tuition

BANGKOK, 22 October 2012: The Department of Tourism together with the ASEAN-Korea Centre will host free Korean language courses for tourism personnel, 12 November to 28 December, at the Department of Tourism.

This free course is for elementary level and will last 60 hours. However, those who qualify must be from companies that are linked to the Tourism Council of Thailand, or are members of associations that are part of the council such as the Thai Hotels Association or the Association of Thai Travel Agents.

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Cambodia asks ADB to fund training

PHNOM PENH, 3 October 2012: To compete in a regional setting, Cambodia’s tourism experts have called for more assistance from the Asian Development Bank to finance workforce training for tourism personnel ahead of the ASEAN Economic Community 2015.

The Government-Private Sector’s Tourism Working Group chairman, Ho Vandy, said representatives of various tourism related associations had asked the ADB for help in technical and vocation education and training.

“By 2015, all ASEAN countries will become a single community which will increase competition and human resources need to be upgraded,” he said.

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