BERLIN, Germany (March 9, 2016) – The executive director of St. Lucia’s internationally renowned twin resorts of Anse Chastanet and Jade Mountain is promoting the value of hospitality and management training at one of the world’s largest tourism industry gatherings, ITB Berlin.
In addition to her role at the two resorts, which regularly appear on lists of the world’s leading hotels, Karolin Troubetzkoy, who originally hails from Germany, is also attending the huge tourism industry show in her capacity as president of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA), a private-sector led organization made up of 32 national hotel and tourism associations representing more than 1,000 hotels and tourism-related businesses throughout the Caribbean.
Well known for her commitment to staff training at Anse Chastanet and Jade Mountain, Troubetzkoy is highlighting the value of education. “We are committed to the development of our region’s and industry’s most important resource – our people.”
She is especially keen to develop closer ties with hospitality training institutions in Europe “to establish an ongoing dialogue and collaboration aimed at further developing the skills of our people and enhancing service standards in the Caribbean region.”
The resorts she manages are a magnet for ambitious and bright young people from Europe and she wants the whole region to benefit from the dynamism of youth from other lands as well as enabling young Caribbean tourism professionals to experience Europe.
“Specifically, we would be interested in looking at formalizing internship opportunities for European students and for Caribbean nationals through a vacancy portal to help them connect with prospective employers in the Caribbean region after graduation. Likewise, we are interested in opening up similar new opportunities for our Caribbean nationals who pursue hospitality degrees.”
Such exchanges, she contended, “help our students and employees to gain valuable insight and language experience and we envision that an exchange or articulation agreement could be arranged between Caribbean hospitality and European institutes.”
Troubetzkoy asserted training in the tourism sector has become even more important. “Qualified recruits are of the utmost importance for the competitiveness of our tourism industry and better education will help our people anticipate the demands which will be thrust at the managers of tomorrow.”
The hotelier is also forging connections between German and European tour operators and CHTA member hotels to contract more business deals for the region.
ITB Berlin, which opened today, features more than 10,000 exhibitors from more than 185 countries.