Dubai to Double Hotel Rooms by 2010
Dubai: Dubai’s hospitality sector workforce could triple in four years as the emirate aims to have 80,000 hotel rooms by 2010 compared with the current 39,000.
The tourism sector at the moment employs about 30,000 people, Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) human resource manager Ebrahim Yaqoot said.
“There will be close to 100,000 people employed in the tourism industry by 2010,” he told Gulf News.
Dubai aims to attract 15 million tourists a year by then. In 2005, 6.2 million tourists stayed in the city’s 409 hotels. As tourist numbers rise and the role of the hospitality sector grows in the economy, people in the industry say personnel training will have to grow in sophistication as well.
DTCM said it has begun a new initiative to supervise and regulate training for staff in hotels and tour companies.
Under an agreement with the Educational Institute of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, DTCM has become the sole licensing authority for the organisation’s training and skill development programmes in the UAE.
The tourism department will engage outside parties such as hotels and educational institutions to offer the training programmes.
Yaqoot said the courses, covering areas such as housekeeping, club management, finance, human resources, front office and sales, would help both workers and managerial personnel in improving their professional skills. “An efficient and trained workforce will help achieve the tourism goals,” he added.
The department trained 1,000 tourism industry professionals in 2005.
“DTCM will be sub-licensing to selected, well-qualified training schools to deliver the courses. The DTCM will be offering a wide selection of courses at its training facility at the Dubai Cruise Terminal,” said David Lechter, a vice-president at the Educational Institute of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.
He said the tourism sector is developing “dramatically and rapidly” and this tieup will provide consistency in certification standards.
The US group has more than 120 licensed affiliates in 45 countries and holds exclusive license agreements in 17 countries.
In February, DTCM became a certified international examination centre for the International Diploma in Travel and Tourism offered by the University of Cambridge.
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