Speaking during at a full-day conference on "Consumer Confidence in the Tourism Industry", Minister for Tourism and Culture Francis Zammit Dimech said that in the first nine months of this year over 1,800 inspections were carried out on catering establishments, dive centers, host families, holiday apartments and other tourism related accommodation.
The Minister explained how over 300 of these inspections were carried out after complaints were set forward. 50 of the cases subsequently were taken to court.
While addressing the conference on Tuesday, Minister Francis Zammit Dimech said that competitiveness in the tourism industry depended on the consumer confidence of tourists. The Minister for Tourism and Culture said that currently, 600 full time students attend this Institute of Tourism Studies (ITS) where training in all services attached to the tourism sector is given. A further 100 students a year are sent abroad on international intership programmes.
Minister Francis Zammit Dimech also announced that the Industry Human Resources Development Unit is tapping European Social Funds (ESP) for Tourism and Support Services training programmes. He said that through ESP and Government funds five activities are being organised.
The activities include a Service Culture training programme to train the trainer multi-media aimed at the nurturing of a service culture to complement the tourism product; good Practices for Good Business with the organisation of workshops aimed at providing standards and working practices; the Welcome Malta (Merħba) Training Programme aimed at improving service providers’ – like transport and support services – ability to communicate with tourists and to provide helpful information about Malta; training Support for SMEs aimed at providing training assistance and support for small and independent businesses; and the study for life long learning, aimed at establishing an infrastructure for Lifelong Learning to address the training needs of the tourism industry.
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