Training thrust

Officials are to embark on a major training programme to develop the potential of tourism industry’s workers especially in foreign language exposure.

They are to engage in training in multiple languages as part of Barbados’ tourism expansion drive to bring visitors from diverse areas to the island.

Permanent Secretary Francine Blackman told the Parliament of Barbados on Wednesday that the National Training Initiative (NTI) is embarking on training of 200 workers on its online platform and an additional number is expected to participate in in-person training with the Jean and Norma Holder Institute arm of the Barbados Community College, starting in July.

“We are not only addressing the language and I know the concerns where we want to make sure Barbadians are multi-lingual and not only capable of speaking the English language, but to be able to converse in other languages as we seek to broaden the scope for visitors here in Barbados,” she said.

The training thrust appeared to have the full backing of Prime Minister Mia Mottley who urged the tourism officials to train local  workers “to be the best that they can be”.

“I look forward to seeing significant progress on this language training immediately as well as the general commitment to continue to train our workers,” Mottley added.

The Prime Minister commented that Barbados doesn’t have the highest repeat visitor rate in the region for decades “by accident”.

“Therefore, the worker-component of our industry is critical, as critical as the sun, sea and sand, is the Bajan,” she insisted.

Minister of Tourism Ian Gooding-Edghill also noted that a training programme is being offered in collaboration with the University of the West Indies and the Barbados Community College and through the BTMI which aims to train airport and seaport workers in language skills to ensure that they can converse with visitors at the critical touchpoints. Specific emphasis is being placed on Spanish, Portuguese and French, he noted.

“That dovetails with the overall marketing strategy that we have in place where we want to bring more visitors from France and those French-speaking territories. We are also focusing on our quest to push the Latin American market and we know that we have to have those skills in place along with Portuguese as we aggressively go after the Brazilian market.”

In answer to a question posed by Mottley on the training programme and the plans by the ministry to make this a critical element of its strategy, the tourism minister acknowledged that it made little sense going to the Latin American market to drive tourism traffic to these shores without preparing to engage with them using their language.

“It’s an ongoing thrust and we are going to forge ahead,” the minister added. (SBP)