Samoa Tourism re-thinks capacity development approach

7th October 2022

Like its Pacific Island neighbours, Samoa continues to navigate its way out of the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Preparing the country for reopening in August this year was a top priority and one that required re-thinking programme delivery for the tourism sector. As such, industry members and Government joined forces through a forum to identify priority training needs which were reaffirmed through a sector employment survey.

Recognising the time and resource constraints, the Samoa Tourism Authority had to re-think the modalities of delivering trainings for the sector. This resulted in shifting from the normal classroom settings to the on-the-job trainings and refresher courses delivered on site and targeting existing employees as well as new workers entering the industry.

In response to the needs identified, the trainings focused on Culinary, Customer Service and Professional Housekeeping. The new approach was well received by the industry and at the end of August, 2022, a total of 204 employees had completed refresher trainings in Customer Service, 150 employees completed the Housekeeping training and a total of 97 employees completed the Culinary training. A total of 451 employees benefitted directly from the training programme and are now confident and ready to support the reopening of Samoa’s borders to visitors, family and friends. It is without doubt that the pandemic has effected a paradigm shift at many levels including in this example of re-thinking training delivery modalities for our industry in Beautiful Samoa.

Photo Caption: Group photo of the team from Samoa Tourism Authority

Photo Credit: Samoa Tourism Authority