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Industry Human Resources Development

EU Funded Training and HR Development

Due to the success of the ‘Merhba’ Training Programme for Transport Providers and Support Services, the MTA have been granted further EU funds to extend the project to target more transport service providers, tourism operational staff in Gozo as well as persons employed or seeking to be employed as Group Leaders in the EFL sector. The project caters for the needs of the tourism human resource segment within the general labour market and aims to improve customer service knowledge, ability and skills amongst these target groups.

The training will run from February till June 2008 and aims to train 586 participants. These are based on results obtained in the original Merhba Training Programme which attracted participants from various sectors of the tourism industry.

The Merhba Programme is part of the Tourism and Support Services Training Programme which has trained over 958 managers and key tourism front liners to date, with over €570,000 funding committed to this programme.

Best Practices in HR

The MTA recently hosted a half day conference on successful HR practices in the tourism industry. This activity formed part of the Good Practice for Good Business benchmarking exercise which is part financed by the European Union, European Social Fund aiming to provide a holistic approach towards training and human resource development in tourism and tourism-related support services. Key note speaker Deirdre Fitzsimons; HR Manager of Clontarf Castle, Ireland, enlightened the audience on how the hotel provides a great working environment, where the development of people and treating them with respect and dignity are key to its success. Closing the conference, Aidan Harte, the Managing Director of Optimum Results in Ireland told the audience "Your competition is not sitting in this room or on the island, your true competition is outside, now work as a team to become a world class and first choice destination for your target market".

This was followed by a presentation of certificates to participants in the Training Support for Tourism SME by the Chairman of the Malta Tourism Authority, Samuel Mifsud. The training programme consisted of management development seminars and one-to-one sessions with professional business advisors aimed at assisting tourism SMEs to develop HR and management capabilities and to embrace strategic business planning to improve business performance. The programme consisted of five seminars and six one-to-one visits by a professional business advisor and a total of 73 SMEs benefited from this programme. Delegates who submitted a Business/Marketing Plan were awarded a Management Certificate by the Institute of Leadership and Management, UK.

Learning at the workplace for smaller hotels

A 30-month EU-funded project promoted and coordinated by the MHRA and the MTA to create learning at the workplace for small and medium sized hotels came to an end at a concluding conference held recently at the Victoria Hotel in Sliema. The project which was spearheaded by Malta involved the participation of five other countries namely Denmark, Germany, Lithuania, Portugal and Spain.

HOTSME, as the project is known - acronym for Hotel SME – is designed to develop the capabilities of the staff of smaller establishments which usually operate with limited numbers of employees, who take on a variety of roles. The aim is to motivate the hotel workforce to undergo continuous, professional, self-improving processes in the field of hospitality. As a result they would be able to develop their soft competencies to improve their quality of service and, therefore, consolidate their competitiveness in the tourism labour market.

The project yielded a modular learning system consisting of five core modules that introduce participants to the concept of self-learning as an individual and as a team by reflecting on the work processes. The aim of the learning exercises is to enhance the ability to learn at the workplace.

The core modules are complemented by four professional development modules, which practice the learning abilities acquired in the core modules, by working on issues like sales and marketing, cultural diversity, communication skills and customer service, benchmarking and self-evaluation.

The products of the project have been tested in a sample of 23 hotels across Europe, involving more than 150 employees. The reactions of the target groups to the field test have been very positive. Necessary improvements that have been revealed during the field test have been integrated in the final versions of the products. A Multi-Media has been produced in seven languages of the partner countries (including Maltese and English) as a tool for the facilitators to reach their objectives.

The HOTSME project has been named by the European Commission as one of the top 50 Leonardo projects: “I am very pleased that the 50 projects that were selected as examples of best practice are presented in this compendium. They highlight the contribution of the Leonardo da Vinci programme to the Copenhagen process and the Lisbon strategy. They will serve as an example and an inspiration to others. I particularly urge the various stakeholders and interested parties in the area of vocational education and training to learn from these results and apply them under the new lifelong learning programme 2007-2013.” (Jan Figel, Member of the European Commission in charge of Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism: 50 Success Stories Leonardo da Vinci Community Programme)

The MTA were responsible for the technical coordination of the project which was led by the Head of Industry HR Development, Joseph Tanti. The Institute of Tourism Studies was also actively involved in the development and testing of the modules, as well as in the design and development of the multimedia. Anthony J. Gatt and Vincent Lungaro Mifsud were responsible for the project management and administration respectively on behalf of the MHRA who were the project promoters.

A grant of €439,000 under the Pilot Measure of the former Leonardo da Vinci Programme was awarded for the implementation of this project. The MTA and MHRA intend to tap into further EU funding to disseminate the HOTSME concept and to reach out to the hospitality and tourism industry.

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www.hotsmeleonardo.com email: hotsme@onvol.net

For further information kindly contact the Industry HR Team on
Telephone: 22915125/4;
Fax: 22915891;
E-mail: training@visitmalta.com
or visit the MTA website at www.mta.com.mt