The Decent Work Team and Office for the Caribbean of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) with the support of the Directorate of Sustainable Tourism at the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), will be hosting a joint Workshop on Anticipating Skills Requirements in Tourism at the ACS Secretariat in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago on May 6th and 7th, 2014 entitled ‘Anticipating Skills Needs – Occupational Trends and Emerging Demands’.

This two day workshop will be the first of two face-to-face workshops as part of a 7 month training programme. Representatives from national training agencies (NTAs) with relevant technical skills and experience, and persons from Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) institutes will be participating.

The main objectives of this training programme are capacity building to implement methodologies and tools for identifying technological, occupational and organizational trends and their impacts on skills strategies and vocational training programmes; as well as the promotion of the Caribbean TVET Councils and NTAs’ participation in ILO/Cinterfor’s Prospective Network.

The ACS will support the capacity building process in order to generate prospective studies that allow NTAs and other Vocational Training Institutes (VTIs), to anticipate skills requirements and design the best training programmes.  This is a key step in order to enhance competitiveness in the Greater Caribbean States and generate more productive jobs and to achieve the establishment of the Sustainable Tourism Zone of the Caribbean (STZC) as a geographically determined cultural, socio-economic and biologically rich and diverse unit, in which tourism development is based on the principles of sustainability, integration, co-operation and consensus.