Getting ready to face the tourist boom together instead of poaching from their nieghbours. This appears to be the main objective behind the organisation of the job fairs tomorrow and next Saturday organised jointly by the Association of Hotel and Restaurant Owners of Mauritius (Ahrim) and the Empowerment Programme (EP). In view of the great expansion in the tourist industry, which expected to keep growing in the coming years, there will be an increasing need for skilled labour. The director of Ahrim, Patrice Legris, sums up the objective of the fairs in one single word: ?Demand?.

Tomorrow, 12 hotels will gather at Rajkoomar Gujadhur SSS in Flacq between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. to present some of the possible jobs in the hotel industry and offer paid training placements to unemployed people. Next Saturday, it will be the turn of some 10 hotels in the west to welcome potential trainees at Bambous Government School at the same times.

<B>Monthly allowance of Rs 3,000</B>

What the Ahrim and EP propose is the placement of 150 people in hotels of the east and west to be given basic skills in four main fields - Housekeeping, Cooking, Food and Beverage and Front Office. These are fields where ?hotels have difficulty in finding people,? confirmed Patrice Legris. The training will be spread over 10 months with a monthly allowance of Rs 3,000. During five days of the week, they will go for practical training in their hotels and one day will be dedicated to theory delivered by hotel training academies.

?HR managers of hotels will be present to interview potential trainees and give them some counselling. Some may not know in which field they want to work and these people will be there to guide them,? said Hootesh Ramburn, coordinator of the EP. At the end of their placement, they will have a certificate coupled with practical experience that will ?undoubtedly make them more employable?.

The Ahrim director insisted that neither employers nor trainees have to commit themselves concerning a job in the hotel where the training was delivered after the ten months. ?Even though there is much chance that the trainees will be recruited afterwards, it was important not to impose any commitment for two main reasons. First of all, some of the hotels are keen on taking part in this effort even if they do not really need to employ anyone for the moment because it will help the employment market in the long term. They want to tackle the problem of lack of skilled labour force at its roots,? Patrice Legris pointed out. ?Moreover, some of the hotel participants are interested in the project but have no place to offer placement. It is the case of Anahita which has not opened but will need this skilled labour in the coming months. So they pay for it and hotels cater for the training,? he added.

<B>Paying the price of our good reputation</B>

In any case, the question of commitment is ?secondary? for Patrice Legris because there is such a high demand for skilled labour in the hospitality sector. So, ?there is no doubt they will get a job after their training period,? he highlighted.

The hotel school cannot cater for all the market?s needs and the problem gets even worse with the competition from hotels in Dubai, Seychelles, Maldives or cruise ships. ?Mauritius is well-known for its quality of service and we are paying the price for this good reputation,? the Ahrim director said. ?Such foreign experience is excellent for our workers but it has consequences on the local market.?

Hootesh Ramburn found the idea of training the staff together particularly interesting. ?Instead of poaching each other?s staff, the initiative of working together in a competitive sector is extremely interesting. Hotels prefer to collaborate to such a programme rather than doing high investments in their own centres.?

In fact, even hotels that already have their academy and are used to training their staff will take part in this programme. ?The initial objective of academies is to complete the training of their staff or to train their staff to the standards of the group or hotel,? Patrice Legris pointed out. So the initiative of the EP and Ahrim should not be in competition with those academies.

The organisers would like anyone unemployed and above 18 to feel concerned about the job fairs. ?It could be people who have not achieved full secondary education, those who have lost their jobs in the textile sector or elsewhere,? said Hootesh Ramburn. After a first fair in Balaclava, the hotels want to renew the experience. The placement should start as from next month?