The Malta Tourism Authority in-service programme

The Malta Tourism Authority, together with the Department for Curriculum Management, has kept its annual appointment with teachers through its In-service programme.

This voluntary programme, ‘Tourism Education: the way forward!’ - was offered to guidance and PSD teachers. The MTA’s In-service programme usually focuses on the general concept of tourism and provides a better understanding of the industry to participants.

This year’s programme, organised by the Industry HR Development Unit within the MTA in collaboration with the Institute of Tourism Studies, highlighted the importance of encouraging more young people to take up a career in tourism.

Participants were given a taster of the students’ experience at ITS. ITS lecturers provided an informative session about different modules taught at the Institute, including IT and e-learning, heritage management, and wine familiarisation. As one participant commented “the programme enabled us to broaden our perspective with regards to the various career paths offered in the tourism industry as well as the various programmes of study the institute offers potential students.”

This was done so as to encourage these teachers, especially those who work directly in career guidance, to motivate their school leavers to follow training programmes offered by the institute. In turn this would boost the number of qualified people working in the industry and consequently help raise the service standards being provided by the industry.

The MTA’s Industry HR Development Unit is responsible for the development of national human resource initiatives for the tourism industry. One of its principal objectives is to encourage secondary school students to look favourably on tourism as a career.