IH&RA, the International Hotel & Restaurant Association, hosted a VIP dinner for its Board of Directors & members of its “Chains Council,”…
IH&RA, the International Hotel & Restaurant Association, hosted a VIP dinner for its Board of Directors & members of its “Chains Council,” composed of leading figures of international hotel and restaurant chains worldwide, alongside the ITB and International Hotel Investment Forum held in Berlin, Germany in March 2005. The evening was sponsored by BBC World and welcomed special guest Hiran Cooray, Vice President of the Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka and Managing Director of Jetwing Hotels Ltd., as well as Peter de Jong, CEO of PATA, the Pacific Asia Travel Association.
Also present that evening was Akhtar Khan, main presenter of the BBC World Programme Fast Track, who interviewed Hiran Cooray giving him the opportunity to share his positive message about Sri Lanka across the BBC worldwide network: Sri Lanka is open for business and ready to welcome visitors.
This evening helped underline the global hospitality industry’s support and solidarity for tsunami-affected destinations. It also underscored one of the IH&RA’s newest initiatives, the “International Worker Exchange Programme” designed to tackle the hotel and restaurant industry’s drastic labour shortage in the developed countries and the over abundance of labour in developing countries, while providing an opportunity for cross-cultural exposure and training.
With the tsunami disaster, the “International Worker Exchange Programme” has become the IH&RA priority program as hotel and restaurant workers in the tsunami-stricken areas found themselves instantly unemployed because of destroyed or damaged properties. As a result, the “International Worker Exchange Programme” will kick off in 2005 with a pilot project to assist some 25,000 workers in the tsunami-affected regions to travel to developed countries to work. IH&RA is in discussion with other international organisations and institutions to ensure that there is both financial and administrative support for the programme in order to overcome obstacles in obtaining visas, training and transportation.
The programme will serve the industry in three major areas: Firstly it will provide income for the employee and his family back home; Secondly, he or she will be exposed to a new culture and be trained in a new way; Thirdly, it will permit the employers to benefit both in high demand seasons and in low labour supply areas.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
