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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 24 Nov 1999

Vol. 511 No. 4

Written Answers. - Tourism Industry.

Breeda Moynihan-Cronin

Question:

40 Mrs. B. Moynihan-Cronin asked the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation the action, if any, he will take arising from the recent CERT report which showed that the tourism sector needed to recruit an additional 105,000 workers if the present growth in business is to be maintained; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24533/99]

The tourism industry, as highlighted in Hospitality 2005, prepared by McIver Consulting and Tansey, Webster Stewart, is facing a twin challenge – the challenge of staff retention and staff recruitment. Of the 105,000 people required by the industry over the next five years, 40,000 will be required to fill new positions arising from the continued expansion of the industry. The remainder will be needed to replace staff who will leave the sector.

The key challenge facing the industry and CERT is to put in place appropriate policies, programmes and arrangements to attract, motivate and retain a skilled labour force in the face of declining labour availability and increasing competition from other sectors.

The importance of tourism training has been reflected in the national development plan which provides £107 million to CERT over the period 2000 to 2006 for a range of measures to improve entry training and human resource capabilities within the tourism sector. CERT is currently considering strategies and programmes to meet the objectives of the national development plan.

CERT will continue to work closely with industry to address these issues by strengthening its role in recruitment, undertaking further strategic research and international practice "benchmarking", as well as facilitating business to adopt human resource management and best operations practice as part of their drive to retain competitiveness. As the McIver study has highlighted, industry must also focus on building on sustainable competitive advantage, in particular through concentrating more resources on staff retention and development. It will also need to change the way it works – become more productive with the same number of people.

Meanwhile, CERT is continuing to promote recruitment to the industry through a variety of strategic interventions which to date have proven to be effective in maintaining recruitment numbers to formal craft level training. The main objective of these interventions is to highlight to young people, those returning to work and other categories of employees, the advantages of a career in a fast growing successful industry.

These interventions include a national tourism careers roadshow which began on 8 November and will take place at 36 venues countrywide. About 10,000 students are expected to attend. Schools unable to attend the roadshow will be offered a career talk in their school. This is in addition to the intensive advertising campaigns which CERT run in the national and local press and on national and local radio.

I recently launched the 1999-2000 edition of Get a Life in Tourism Magazine. This magazine portrays a job in the hospitality sector as an exciting and rewarding career. The magazine is an imaginative joint initiative between the Irish Hotels Federation, CERT and the Restaurants Association of Ireland and is the ideal partnership approach to convince young people that the tourism industry is an attractive business in which to work.
I want to refer to the £1 million area based training pilot scheme in the two unemployment blackspots of Ballymun and Clondalkin. This new scheme offers training and the real prospect of a job in tourism to 230 unemployed people in these locations. CERT has also recently announced that a new training facility in Limerick will be operational by early next year. The new training centre will be located at the former Krups factory in Limerick City and will provide capacity for an increase of almost 50 per cent in the number of new trainees in that location. The new centre will concentrate on training unemployed people and those wishing to re-enter the workforce.
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