The Ministry of Tourism held a February 20 training course for Hospitality Kampuchea (HoKa) evaluators in the Northeastern provinces.

The training, held in Stung Treng, aimed to promote the sustainability of hospitality training for those who lost their jobs during the Covid-19 crisis. It focused on front office, housekeeping, and food and beverage services.

Pak Sokhom, ministry secretary of state and chairman of the HoKa project management committee, said the rehabilitation of tourism professionals would create job opportunities for young people, and also aimed to retrain workers who had left the industry during the tourism downturn caused by the pandemic.

He explained that the training would ensure higher quality tourism services.

“As a result of the training, core officials in the target provinces will be capable of offering both technical training and competency testing that meet HoKa standards,” he said.

Christian Volker Ide, head of the Skills Development Programme (SDP) at Swisscontact – supporters of HoKa – said his organisation would continue to advise the ministry’s HoKa committee so it ran efficiently and qualitatively, and continued to contribute to the growth of the tourism sector.

“Swisscontact will increase capacity building of the tourism profession. As the tourism minister has always said, ‘tourism skills are your life’,” he added.

Chuob Ratana, director of the Department of Tourism Development Planning and head of the Secretariat of the HoKa committee, said from 2015 to 2022, more than 3,000 tourism professionals received training.

He expected more than 400 businesses to access training this year.

“The HoKa project management committee is focussed on mobilising national and international development partners to support the up-skilling of tourism professionals who are being recalled to the industry as part of post-Covid-19 recovery efforts,” he said.

“The HoKa training programme is a sub-national training agenda that has been recognised by all stakeholders for its quality, efficiency, transparency,” he added.

Thourn Sinan, chairman of IMCT Co Ltd and the Pacific Asia Travel Association Cambodia chapter (PATACC), said that in recent years, the ministry had become very active in training staff in the industry.

“Some provinces in the north-eastern regions are still lacking trained hospitality staff. Of course, there aren’t that many foreign or high net-worth tourists visiting the region most of the time – possibly because of poor transport links,” he added.

He suggested that the various government institutions that were responsible for such things should consider improving the bus terminals that link to the isolated parts of the Kingdom as this would make it easier for foreign tourists to arrange journeys there.