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| Sunday, 9 October 2005 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Travel ITH Austria to help Hotels School upgrade curriculum by Surekha Galagoda Hilfswerk Austria is getting the Tourism and Hotel Management (ITH) Klessheim Salzburg, Austria considered one of the best schools in the world to provide training in tourism and hotel management to assist the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management (SBITHM) to upgrade the curriculum to provide an international standard of education in Sri Lanka.
The new (SBITHM) curriculum will be launched in 2006. The principal of CHS and two senior lecturers will visit ITH in November for one week for a training program. The Dean of ITH Salzberg Leo Worndl and International Student Coordinator Andrea Monsberger were in Sri Lanka last month to discuss the implementation process of the curriculum. The SBITHM curriculum has not been updated for 20 years and plans are under way to reduce the curriculum from five to three years. Hilfswerk Austria will provide six scholarships, three in 2005 and three next year for students who have graduated from the SBITHM to study at the ITH. The students are selected based on merit and they will be groomed as future lecturers as the Ceylon Hotels School is short of qualified lecturers. The 2005 batch has been already selected. Hilfswerk Austria is investing Euro 250,000 to upgrade the tourism industry in Sri Lanka, a spokesman for Hilfswerk said. The long-term plan of the project is to affiliate SBITHM to ITH Austria and upgrading the curriculum is the first step in this long process. The first and latest intakes to the Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management (ITH) Klessheim in Salzburg, Austria are Lester Fernando and Prasanna Wijesinghe Jayewardene, Sandamala Wickremaratne and David Mangala, two of the very recent Sri Lankans to finish schooling and the Dean of the school Leo Worndl and International Student Co-ordinator Ms. Andrea Monsberger were with them in connection with setting up a Sri Lanka past Students' Association to link with the Asian arm which is being planned. The school has students from across the world and is sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and Austrian Government through Hilfswerk Austria. We are planning the Sri Lanka Past Students' Association as we want to contribute our knowledge and experience to the industry and network with each other for a better future, said Prasanna Jayawardena. Hilfswerk Austria is one of Austria's biggest organisations for development cooperation, humanitarian aid and cooperation with Eastern Europe. Hilfswerk has 29 offices including Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka they are involved in tourism projects and helping people affected by the tsunami. Anne Travels heads for Europe and Australia Anne Travels is planning to open offices in Europe and Australia within the next two years, said Managing Directress of Anne Travels and Tours (Pvt) Ltd Anne Sivalingam. She said that at present the company is diversifying the business in travel to suit the needs of the modern day with value added services on outbound packages. Situated at Chatham Street, Colombo the company arranges holiday packages to destinations such as Maldives, Africa and special packages for senior citizens, pilgrimages, historical tours and study tours to any part of the world. "Our services include retail and corporate ticketing, inbound tours, corporate incentive packages as well as hotel and resort accommodation at the hotel of your choice. We also help our customers with the visas and travellers cheques and also provide vehicles for hotel transfers," Ms Sivalingam said. From its early beginnings of issuing air tickets the company has expanded its services to the local clientele as well. The staff at Anne Travels are focused on providing a quality service to our customers giving them the best choice. We employ some of the most experienced staff in the hospitality industry in the country and are linked with global airline distribution system enabling the company to have real time access to airline and hotel inventory and other products to enhance service delivery. With our state-of-the art communication system we are able to answer all queries within 24 hours. Austrian Airlines gears for on-line operations Austrian Airlines in Colombo is preparing for on-line operations which are scheduled to commence next month. Staff at their offices in Colombo have already donned the attractive new Austrian Airlines uniforms which embody the new look which forms an important part of the airline's new corporate identity. The "Austrian Collection" has been designed to hold a special place within the framework of our corporate identity," said Rajitha Seneviratne, Director/General Manager of Browns Tours Ltd., General Sales Agents for Austrian Airlines who is also Manager Sri Lanka for Austrian Airlines. "The demand for high quality service is visible in the design of the uniform which supports the work of our staff in their very demanding and sensitive job performance" He said a large team from Austrian Airlines worked with tremendous enthusiasm to achieve the total look presented by the new design created by Austrian Designer Sabine Kreuzspiegel. Effective next month Austrian Airlines will commence operating twice weekly scheduled flights with the possibility of it increasing to three flights a week. "However, effective April 2006, scheduled Austrian Airlines flights will
operate thrice weekly on the Vienna/Colombo/Male/Vienna route,". |
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