Government’s partnership with Barbados to train 6,000 Guyanese for the hospitality sector is intended to meet needs of the industry by ensuring a skilled workforce is ready as several major hotel projects are in the works, according to Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce Oneidge Walrond, who says the administration’s plan for a local hospitality institute is also still on the cards.
“The conversation with Barbados is about immediate needs. We have six hotels turning sod in another 24 months. They are going to need employees, so it’s seeing that need down the road…,” Walrond told Stabroek News in an interview.
The arrangement with Barbados was announced after bilateral discussions between President Irfaan Ali and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley on the sidelines of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) that was recently hosted in the island.
Ali subsequently told a press conference that Barbados, whose economy is built on tourism, has agreed to train 6,000 Guyanese for the hospitality sector as part of a framework for enhanced collaboration.
“You know Barbados has an established, world-class hospitality programme and they are going to support us in a training of 6,000 Guyanese who will function in the hospitality sector…we have to move aggressively with the 6,000 Guyanese because we have a lot of investment in the hospitality sector that is coming and we need to have the technical capacity, [and] the human resources to manage and to the work in those hotels,” he explained.
Walrond highlighted that at a time when there is a buzz over the creation of a strong local content policy and the need for Guyanese to benefit from the emerging sectors of the economy, equipping locals with the skills is of the utmost importance for the government.
Asked if hotel developers should not invest in the training of their employees, the minister stated that the government has to ensure the skills and services are available, leaving no room for the importation of employees to do the jobs locals can.
“We want to be able to say, ‘We have our people; they are trained and ready…’ They are our people, they are Guyanese. We continue to make the point that local content is where companies should go, even though they are private investors. We are not going to encourage them bringing foreigners to do the jobs our people can do…,” said Walrond as she emphasised that the necessary infrastructure to support local content must be in place.
She stated that with the locals trained in the sector, brands can be able to move forward with specific training aligned with their franchise without having to start from scratch.
The architecture of the programme is still to be refined. During the course of this week, Walrond explained that a meeting is scheduled with her Barbadian colleague, Minister of Tourism Lisa Cummins, on the way forward with the programme.
According to her, the meeting will see discussions on cost of the training, how the training will be done, the number of batches that can be trained at a time, and whether persons can be trained to be trainers to transfer knowledge to fellow Guyanese at home, among other things.
“…To figure out how we are going to do that… we still have to refine how we are going to do this. We are looking at how we can train our people… we are going to be meeting on Wednesday to get the modalities worked out…they certainly don’t have the capacity to train all 6,000 in 24 months… we have to work out those modalities. We just know we have the need for 6,000 trained people,” Walrond said.
The possibility of having trainers from Barbados present here for periods has not been ruled out but the minister said she would like to have the discussion with Barbados to determine what it is prepared to offer and how best Guyana can benefit.
She, however, noted that the country is well equipped to offer the training and have the necessary facilities to offer a hands-on approach. In the same breath, she said that if the training is done here by Barbadian trainers, local hotels will be used for training in the delivery of service. “…You sort of have to be trained while doing the work. The two are not exclusive even if we are training here we will use hotels here to be a component of the training for hotels… If they are prepared to house our trainers and to train them. The access to the facilities are certainly there,” Walrond added.
Several international hotel chains have signaled their intention of setting up operations here. These include the Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott and Radisson Blu. Currently, two hotels, Marriott Courtyard at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri and Aiden Hotel by Best Western have entered the construction phase. A few others have signed Memorandum of Understanding with the government to begin construction.
Higher tier service
Barbados is one of the premier tourist destinations in the Caribbean and Guyana is intending to capitalise on the expertise there. The two countries have committed to devoting 45 minutes of airtime to each other on their national airwaves for the promotion of their respective tourism products.
“We agreed on working on the mechanism for the twinning of our tourism products, for the joint marketing of our tourism products and to promote Guyana and Barbados as a common destination. We spoke about the development of a joint marketing strategy in traditional and nontraditional markets,” Ali said during his announcement of the training initiative.
When asked further whether the Carnegie School of Home Economics, which is renowned for its culinary classes, can’t be of service to provide training to locals to develop the sector, the Walrond said the capacity isn’t there and it is an area the government is looking to develop.
“There are some areas we can use their skills to help with but if we are looking at a four star hotel standard, it’s a different market and higher tier… If you notice, hotels like Marriott have to import their trainers because there is a certain standard that they have to meet and as a franchise you have to keep that,” she said before underscoring that Guyana does not have the capacity to provide the needed niche training.
She added that with international visitors being accustomed to high standards in the hospitality sector, in promoting Guyana as a destination one must be able to offer service of a higher tier than what we are accustomed to.
“The visitors that are going to come will expect the standard because moving from one Marriott to the next, wherever in the world you are, there is a continuous standard. They are pretty consistent if you stay at a luxury hotel. You have noticed that the toilet paper is folded in a design. So those are the little experiences that make the difference in the tourism. We want our service providers to offer those different tiers,” she added.
With the training opportunities available to Guyanese, Walrond said it is her vision to build capacity in the sector. “…We are training people who can ultimately come back and do that skill transfer. We can have our trainers go to remote communities where it is expensive to come out and do training in culinary arts, in bed making, in management and accounting, so ultimately you have certified trainers who can be dispatched to different communities. That is my vision…,” she disclosed.
Training Institute
Meanwhile, Walrond also said the government is currently working on the blueprint for the previously announced Hospitality Institute, which will be used to train Guyanese in the future.
In December last year, the Ministry of Finance secured a loan from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) for the construction of a US$11.6 million Hospitality and Tourism Training Institute. The institute, the ministry said, would be constructed at Providence behind the Guyana National Stadium. It is intended to facilitate the training of persons to equip them with the necessary skills and qualifications to supply some of the demand required in the country’s tourism and hospitality sector.
The project, Walrond said, is significantly delayed due to the fact that they have to spend time rescaling it upwards of what they had envisioned.
The project, which she referred to as the brainchild of her government while it was in power pre-2015, was scaled down by the APNU+AFC but never got off the ground.
“We had a vision for something bigger, something more prestigious, that can make an impact and to see that we are making growth and expanding. We need something better. We are scaling up the project and that is [causing the] delay…,” she explained.
It was pointed out that due to procurement policies, the project cannot be completed in time to train the number of Guyanese required over the next two years.
A feature of the project, Walrond noted, will be to have a training hotel that will offer a handson approach to teachings.
