Partnership with UAE hotels mulled to develop Hotel School

Shirajiv Sirimane in UAE

DUBAI, FRIDAY: Sri Lanka is exploring the possibility of developing the Hotel School and is looking for a partnership with some of the hotels in the UAE said the Deputy Minister of Tourism Faizer Mustafa.

He told the Sunday Observer on the closing day of the four-day Arabian Travel Market in Dubai that there is an annual demand for nearly 25,000 employment opportunities in the leisure sector for the Gulf region and Sri Lanka must exploit this opportunity.

He said that already leading hotels in the UAE employ over 30 percent of Sri Lankans and this gives an advantage for the country.

"The high literacy rate and the training the Sri Lankans receive in their home country are highly accepted here," the Deputy Minister said.

Although the Hotels school in Sri Lanka has the capacity to train 1,300 they accommodate less than 400 students. "What we want to do is to tie up with a few hotels in the UAE so that we could train students and send them for employment back to the UAE," he said.

The Deputy Minister who met high officials of the Tourism Authority in Dubai received a positive response for this. "We will follow this up when we get back," he said. The Deputy Minister said that Sri Lanka is gaining popularity as a destination in the UAE due to its higher diversity. After the 9/11 incident in the USA even people in the Gulf prefer to travel to Asian destinations.

"The Gulf arrivals have been less than 12,000 so far and with the promotions at the ATM we hope to increase it to around 30,000 by the end of the year," he said. The expatriate community based in the Gulf earns a high income and tapping this market would bring in high spenders to the country.

"One of the other main advantages of the Gulf market is that their holiday season is between June and August which is the off season for Sri Lanka," he said.

The Arabian Travel Market 2007 - the 14th edition of the Middle East's premier travel and tourism exhibition has reported its highest-ever first-day visitor tally with industry professionals from 88 countries attending.

Some 5,002 visitors attended the show at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre (DICEC), an increase of 5.2% compared to 2006.