Call For More Training To Aid Tourism Industry

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32209, 30 January 1970, Page 14

Call For More Training To Aid Tourism Industry

The growth of tourism as an industry should be carefully considered alongside the training now available to provide for its needs, particularly in the fieU of catering, the chairman of the New Zealand division of the Cookery and Food Association (Mr B. Henderson) said yesterday. “In any other industry it would be ludicrous to embark on any enterprise without ensuring that sufficient trained people are available,” he said. “New international hotels and motels are noisily proclaimed, but anyone who has the occasion to eat out must ponder the question of where the additional staff are coming from and if they are properly trained.” He said the growing importance of the tourist industry to New Zealand’s overseas earnings was at last being recognised, but in Europe, where the importance of tourism had long been accepted, it was also recognised that there must be a welltrained and competent labour force able to provide the high standard of food, service and accommodation expected by the overseas tourist.

“It is therefore disquieting to note that little mention is ever made of where this trained labour force is to come from,” he said. “Most catering establishments have sufficient trainees to provide for their particular needs only. An apprenticeship scheme is available for a few lucky applicants and has a considerable waiting list. “If one discounts the Armed Services, which until recently, provided the only formal catering education in New Zealand, the only way that a young person can obtain formal training is by attending courses at the Auckland Technical Institute or

the Otago Polytechnic. I have deliberately omitted the Central Institute of Technology at Heretaunga because, at this stage, it is untried and unproven.”

Mr Henderson said he was not certain that the courses provided at Heretaunga were of the right type to fulfill the need.

“Departments of catering education have long been part of the European scene,” he said. “It goes without saying that they would not receive the necessary financial support if they had not proved themselves to be a practical and economic proposition. “Whereas the movement of trained personnel throughout Europe is a relatively cheap and simple matter, New Zealand has the added disadvantage of geography. Only a limited num' :r can be attracted from Europe and we must rely therefore on a home-trained product.” That there was a great demand from young, well-edu-cated persons to enter the industry was confirmed by the inquiries to the Cookery and Food Association, he said. There were more than 120 applicants to fill 28 positions on a new course at the Auckland Technical Institute. The Armed Services had a two year waiting list for young men wanting to train as chefs.

“The growth of tourism as an industry should therefore be carefully considered alongside training now available to provide for its needs,” he said. “If a parallel is not achieved and maintained, it could be compared with a one-lunged marathon runner, labouring along for a short distance and then expiring red-faced and with hardly a gasp.”