60 Tourism Workers Take Part In New Law Programme

Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, says over the next four weeks, 60 tourism workers will be participating in a new law programme offered by the University of the West Indies.

The Minister said the new training initiative, called ‘Tourism and Law’, and featuring topics such as Introduction to Criminal Law, Introduction to Contract Law, Law of Torts and Sexual Harassment, will be done at a reduced cost of $1 million at the UWI Western Jamaica Campus, and is appropriate for skills building in the industry.

“The course is suitable for managerial and human resource positions in the tourism industry. The skills of workers to provide the better output is going to be the differentiating point between ‘Destination Jamaica’ and the rest of the world, during this ‘live with COVID and post COVID’ era,” Mr. Bartlett said, on May 29 while addressing a tourism online forum.

Cost of the training will be covered by the Jamaica Centre of Tourism Innovation (JCTI).

The Minister emphasised that front-line workers in the industry are the most “important elements of a destination supply side, and the Jamaican work teams have largely built tourism”.

The forum was geared at providing updates on the JCTI online programme, which was created to assist tourism workers who have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Bartlett reported that due to the many responses to the programme, the initial budget of $6.1 million had to be increased to $11.5 million, with more than 4,700 persons enrolled in the training.

He said with the downturn in the industry resulting from the coronavirus, he is pleased with the workers using the opportunity to upgrade their skills, as they are “forward-thinking and reskilling for the future”.

The online training initiative is in partnership with the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF), Human Employment Resource Training/National Service Training Agency Trust (HEART/NSTA Trust), Universal Service Fund (USF). National Restaurants Association (NRA), and the American Hotel and Lodging Educational Institute (AHLEI).