This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Service in the City conference
18/03/2004
Investing in the development of skills and training
of people in the tourism industry is the best way to make
sure visitors toScotlandenjoy their stay, a special conference was told
today.
Ahead of the Service in the City conference at the
Radisson Hotel inGlasgow, Tourism Minister Frank McAveety said:
"The quality of the experience enjoyed by our
visitors when they visitScotlanddepends crucially on the professionalism of the staff
at every level within the industry.
"That is why I announced last week, as part of
the reform of the tourism industry structure, a £3
million investment over two years to help intergrate
skills and staff development provision into the
VisitScotland Quality Assurance scheme. This will allow
us to enhance and build upon the valuable tourism
training and development support that Enterprise
Networks currently provide.
"One of Scotland's greatest assets is its people,
and by developing and enhancing the services which
industry workers provide for the tourist, will help us
to realise our ambition of making Scotland a must
visit, must return destination.
"We need to increase training opportunities for
managers of smaller businesses to help improve service
quality, innovation and recruitment and retention of
staff. Those managers are key to making a career in
tourism and hospitality attractive to their staff and
also to potential recruits.
"This is vital if we are to sharpen tourist
services and provide visitors with an experience
unrivalled anywhere in the world."
The aim of the Service in the City conference is to
raise the profile of service and keep it high on the agenda
of businesses. The objective is to recognise good practise
fromScotlandand around the world and to hear from companies
who have made the link between service and
profit.
It is one of a number of initiatives around
service that Scottish Enterprise has been supporting
for the last three years as part of a process of
encouraging a Service Culture within tourism
businesses. This positively evolving picture is that
things do not change overnight but the culture of an
industry can change over a number of years. A vote at
the first conference indicated that the majority of
business attending rated service as fundamental to the
success business.
Evaluation from the previous conferences
has found that the businesses have valued the day and
is a great motivator to make changes within their
business.