2018 National Tourism Career Expo to be held in the North West

©HONGQI ZHANG via 123RF

The NTCE is a collaboration consisting three partners: the Department of Tourism (DT), the Culture Arts, Tourism, Hospitality & Sport Education Training Authority (CATHSSETA) and the North West Department of Tourism, and provides an opportunity for tourism curricula experts and industry skills specialists to share information with tourism educators and learners, on a variety of careers choices and opportunities the sector offers.

"We launch the NTCE at the start of an important month in the calendar of the tourism industry, as we celebrate both Tourism and Heritage Month in our country. This year’s NTCE will be the most spectacular the country has ever seen, and this is a promise we intend to keep," said MEC Desbo Mohono at the official media launch, held at the Taung Hotel School.

Congratulating the province for winning the bid to host the event, the Deputy Minister of Tourism, Elizabeth Thabethe said the province has adequate resources to support the sector in skills development. "The NTCE has grown to be a brand and a key event in South Africa’s tourism calendar and has gone a long way in profiling and creating awareness of tourism as a vibrant career of choice. We celebrate with the North West for being afforded an opportunity to showcase this important event."

Bridging the information gap

The NTCE is designed to bridge the information gap between the industry, government, learners and educators. Under the theme Tourism is alive with opportunities, the expo aims to drive South Africa`s National Tourism Sector Strategy`s goal of creating 300,000 tourism jobs opportunities by 2026.

The NTCE rotates among provinces who bid for the rights to host the event over a period of three years. This event is key among the deliverables of the National Tourism Sector Strategy as it responds to the Broad-Based Benefits pillar, that focuses on transformation, rural tourism development, enterprise development and investment – none of which is mutually exclusive. Improvements are required in all of these pillar areas to strengthen the realisation of broad-based benefits from tourism.

Closing the media launch, the Chairperson of CATHSSETA Dr Victor Ramathesele, expressed his organisation’s vested interest in ensuring the strategic support intent of the NTCE to create a future pool of human capital that will support the current and future tourism growth in South Africa. "As a labour-intensive industry, we understand that this human capital needs to have access to skills development to ensure that they are adequately skilled to support the sector."