Kya Knight of Deighton Griffith School, winner in the senior category of the FCCA Essay Competition at both local and regional levels, receiving her prizes from Leah King (left), Manager of the Foster and Ince Cruise World, and Chief Executive Officer (Ag) of the Barbados Tourism Product Authority, Marsha Alleyne.
Move to deepen working relationships with cruise lines
The Ministry of Tourism is seeking to prepare young Barbadians for the vast job opportunities available in the cruise industry.
To this end, the Hon. Kerrie Symmonds, Minister of Tourism and International Transport, has commenced discussions with Carnival Cruise Lines and is exploring the opportunity of working with the Maritime Training School to deepen working relationships with cruise lines, so as to build out a tertiary education component to cruise-related activities.
Word of this came from Chief Executive Officer (Ag) of the Barbados Tourism Product Authority (BTPA), Marsha Alleyne, who was at the time delivering remarks on behalf of Minister Symmonds during the prize-giving ceremony for the 2018 Florida Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA) Essay and Poster Competitions, held at the Warrens Office Complex yesterday.
“These will include maritime training to prepare our young people for job opportunities in areas such as: Naval Architecture and Marine Surveillance, Ship Engineering and Maintenance, Ship Master Training and the development of necessary skills to fit posts such as cruise operation management, cruise director, guest relation management – in other words, the full range of opportunities provided in the cruise experience,” she revealed.
Congratulating the students on their efforts, Alleyne explained that such competitions strive to assist children in furthering their education, by allowing them to research Barbados as a tourism destination and also provide them with an opportunity to tackle real world problems in tourism.
She stressed that engagement with the youth is critical and it is certainly one of their strategic priorities.
“As we recognise that in order to ensure that the industry is sustained, we have to put emphasis on developing our youth in the primary, secondary and tertiary levels.”
“To this end, the Minister has revealed that the Ministry of Tourism is now seeking to deepen the awareness of developmental and cultural values that tourism can bring. And this will be achieved by exploring ways of getting the dynamics of tourism into the formal primary and secondary schooling process, so that our students can discuss and understand the essence of issues such as; sustainable tourism development, climate resilient construction, and the economic value of community-tourism development and the ways in which development and export of new skills can be achieved via tourism,” she highlighted.
“As a result, competitions such as these will help our youth to develop the level of creativity needed to take the industry forward and allow them to share their valuable insights on the cruise sector and could even further develop an interest in choosing a career within the tourism industry.” (TL)