Manila Bulletin
A group of businessmen is pushing for the upliftment of standards on the country’s tourism and hospitality learning institutions to be able to produce quality graduates for the country’s booming tourism industry and for overseas jobs.
Samie Lim, president of the Franchise Investment Holdings Inc., told reporters his group will put up the Canada Tourism & Hospitality Institute, the first international franchise of the Canadian Tourism College (CTC), which is the benchmark for international standards in tourism and hospitality learning institutions.
The newly-formed Canadian Franchise Holdings Inc. has an authorized capitalization of P88.8888 million and paid up of P25 million. Former finance secretary Jose T. Pardo is company chairman.
Lim said his group has decided to franchise this Canadian school to uplift the training of the tourism and hospitality institutes in the country to the international standards.
“We found out that while we have good culinary schools and well-trained chefs, we need to uplift specific skills to international standards for our frontline services. We have to concentrate in the non-food aspect of tourism by adopting the US and EU standards,” he said.
Lim said the new school to be located at the Paragon Building, corner Reliance St. along Edsa will open in May next year offering short courses of three months to 6 months, and one year to two years.
“We will start with this proto-type school,” Lim said.
These courses include wine appreciation, bartendering and advanced barista, housekeeping, hotel reservations and other non-food frontline services.
Lim said the school will start with six rooms with only 25 students. The school will also feature mock-up rooms and bars and other facilities for use by students and actual demonstrations.
Lim said they are talking with various hotels to be able to assist their students for on-the-job-training and possible placements after. Students can also be on an exchange program to the Canadian College of Tourism during the duration of the program. (BCM)
