Hospitality and tourism is the sector of the future as nine per cent of job opportunities is already available in this sector, said Tourism Department Secretary Dr Mona Sharma at the annual function of the Swosti Institute of Management and Social Studies (SIMSS) ‘ATITHYA’ held here on Wednesday.
She said if one is willing to work hard, learn, acquire the skills and is open-minded and learns from the best from this sector, the sky is the limit for him. This is just the beginning of the learning process; and the maximum learning happens when one starts working in the same sector, she added.
Odisha Skill Development Authority Chairman Subroto Bagchi said if one is studying well in hospitality and tourism, he or she can earn far more than an IT engineer. For making a world-class hotel, one has to keep a world-class benchmark in his mind, he said.
Sharing his experiences in the world-class hotels throughout the world, Bagchi said good hospitality and elder care are essentially memorable for customers.
Swosti Group CMD JK Mohanty said the State Government should focus more on giving better incentives to the hospitality education sector like providing land with provision for payment in instalments to serious people who would like to contribute to development of skilled labour in the hospitality sector.
He said the aim is to provide good-quality human resource to the hospitality education sector. “We have already planned to expand our infrastructure nearer to Bhubaneswar with a much larger campus,” he said and thanked the Government for considering allotment of land for this purpose.
Swosti Group director Chiranjeev Mohanty, senior journalist Sriram Dash, SIMSS Principal Aseema Panda also spoke on the occasion. A cultural programme was also held being performed by SIMSS students.