Berita Kampus

TAR College – Employers Forum 2009
“Tourism Education in a Challenging Environment”

TAR College organizes a Forum with the industry employers every year to foster ties between industry and the College as partners in education and training. The Employers forum provides an excellent platform for academia-industry dialogue to provide feedback and share developments and market trends in the industry that impact human capital development.

The Forum in 2009 was extra special, as the theme “Tourism Education in A Challenging Environment” focused on one particular industry i.e. tourism with well-known tourism professionals being invited as speakers to share their industry knowledge and insights. The attendees were guests, staff and students from the School of Social Science and Humanities.

The key speaker was Y Bhg Datuk Dr Victor Wee, Chairman of Tourism Malaysia who gave a very insightful talk on “Malaysian Tourism Industry: Prospects and Opportunities”. The audience was listening with rapt attention to Dr Wee’s in-depth talk on the important roles of tourism as a second income earner for the country and in creating employment and job opportunities in the economy. He elaborated that despite the HINI flu, the financial crisis and the haze, there have been growth in medical tourism, education tourism, in retail, accommodation (hospitality) and transportation, aided in someway by the Government initiatives in liberalizing the service sectors.

Mr Tan Sin Chong, the Managing Director of Reliance Pacific Berhad and Mr Dennis Tan, Group General Manager of Value Hospitality were the second and third speakers respectively. Mr Tan Sin Chong in his talk, “Travel & Leisure Business: Challenges & Issues in the HR Development” emphasized on the variety and diversity of different job opportunities in the tourist industry, the need for English competency and the common perception of “long hours and low pay”.

Equally interesting was Mr Dennis Tan’s talk on “Talent Management in the Hospitality Industry”, in which he cited examples of ways and means to manage character-building and moulding people to be dependable, proactive, communicative, open-minded and transparent in their dealings. He stressed on effective training and the measuring of performance through KPIs and peer reviews.

Ng Yi Jia, an Advanced Diploma student in Hotel Management enthused, “The talks were very informative. It helped me to understand the realities and challenges of the industry.”

TAR College – Employers forum provides a platform for the development of a synergistic relationship between academia and the industry to blend academic rigidity with industrial relevance. It is one of the many initiatives taken by the College to help to prepare TAR College graduates to be “market ready” and hence much sought after by employers.

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