Addressing the 2012 Tourism, Technology & Training Forum in Sydney last Friday, MTA – Mobile Travel Agents’ Karine Raiz has tabled the need for both the travel industry and government to reinvest in training if the industry is to benefit in years to come.

A former teaching professional lecturing in travel and tourism at Sydney Institute of TAFE (Ultimo Campus), Ms Raiz pointed towards industry training cuts which in recent times have seen both the Federal and NSW State Governments slash more than $1.7 billion from TAFE budgets, with travel courses suffering a 50 per cent cut.

But as important as funding is, Ms Raiz also drew attention to the type of training required in today’s environment which she said needs to depend less on old style fares and ticketing, HR, marketing and other management functions.

The focus she said needs to be training in  or training towards a whole of host of relevant information and system-based ‘knowledge’ areas that are more pertinent to doing business in the travel sector in this day and age.

“Simply put, if both the industry and companies want to get the very best results from new staff coming into the industry, there needs to be investment in training – and the right kind of training,” Ms Raiz said.

“It is also essential that existing employees be given the opportunity to continuously increase their skills through training,” she said.  “This is particularly pertinent to the Gen Y demographic who want to be constantly learning."

“It is said that Gen Y gets bored easily and will leave you at 90 per cent learning capacity.

“There is obviously a need to provide well planned career development programmes and also strategies that offer every employee the opportunity to up skill.

“Companies too often provide training which just reinforces old skills instead of building new ones.

“The same thing applies at TAFE level and other educational bodies where young people looking to enter into a travel industry career need to be offered more challenging and relevant training opportunities better suited to today’s industry environment.

“I would also emphasise that the industry in this day and age is actually heavily technology based while training is not. And no function can be completed without access to reliable training systems.”

Taking place since 1989, the Tourism Technology and Training Forum has become the most important global conference devoted to education, research, information, and technology in the tourism and transport fields.

The main thrust of the 2012 symposium as in previous years is to address the complex business, technological, cultural, and environmental challenges facing the global tourism industry today.