Olympics style customer service training for thousands of hospitality staff in Northern Ireland
The sector skills council, People 1st, have teamed up with the Northern Ireland Tourist Board to offer the WorldHost training programme which has been used to train hospitality staff around the world ahead of global events such as the Vancouver Winter Olympics and London 2012.
Over 1 million people around the globe have already received the WorldHost training and People 1st and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board will be working together to deliver it in Northern Ireland to try and improve standards.
People 1st‘s Northern Ireland manager, Roisin McKee said: “Customer service is a vital part of the visitor experience, but it is a real skills need for tourism businesses – our recent State of the Nation report found that 64 per cent of employers feel that customer handling skills need improving within their workforce.”
It will be a big two years for the Northern Ireland hospitality industry and for tourism with key global events including the centenary of the Titanic disaster and Derry-Londonderry's stint as the inaugural UK City of Culture. A ‘master trainer’ has been appointed for the programme and a network of other trainers will be hired to begin work in the new year.
