SINGAPORE - As Singapore’s tourism sector continues to recover after the pandemic, efforts are under way to raise the skills of employees in the hospitality and tourism industry and boost service standards here.

Two initiatives announced on Jan 4 will provide more training opportunities for workers, as well as students hoping to join the industry.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the hotel and accommodation sector will be able to tap a new upskilling framework to get guidance in areas such as developing new or improved products, enhancing their customer services and improving productivity.

The framework has been developed by industry veteran Raffles Hotel Singapore, which was recently appointed as a SkillsFuture Queen Bee by government agency SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG).

This means it will take a leading role to upskill and reskill SMEs in its ecosystem and sector, and support them in identifying and acquiring the skills they need to transform their businesses.

The hotel hopes to work with at least 40 SMEs per year over a two-year period, it said in a joint media release with SSG on Jan 4.

Employees of participating SMEs will be able to attend bespoke training programmes conducted by Raffles Hotel on skills such as wine service, personalised customer service and floristry.

The hotel will also mentor the SMEs and develop skills-learning road maps for their employees.

It will work with learning partners, such as the polytechnics, Institute of Technical Education and the National Centre of Excellence for Workplace Learning led by Nanyang Polytechnic, to curate customised learning solutions for the SMEs. These will cover areas such as service and product innovation, digitalisation and workplace learning.

There could also be collaborations between the SMEs and institutes of higher learning on innovation projects for the industry.

Mr Christian Westbeld, managing director of Raffles Hotel Singapore, said: “With international travel and tourism making a strong comeback to pre-pandemic levels and heightened global competition among destinations, Singapore’s hotel and accommodation services sector must evolve to provide fresh experiences for guests to maintain its competitiveness.”

There are a total of 33 Queen Bee companies in sectors including logistics, manufacturing and retail.

Raffles Hotel, which was ranked 17th in the inaugural The World’s 50 Best Hotels ranking in 2023, is the first to be appointed in hotel and accommodation.

Ibis Singapore Novena is one of the hotels that has come on board the programme. Its operations manager, Ms Josephine Yen Lui, said she hopes working with Raffles Hotel will be a “game changer” in upskilling employees and transforming the business.

She added that Ibis Singapore Novena hopes to implement digital innovation initiatives, which aim to transform its operations by using technology to bolster productivity, optimise back-end processes and make workflows more efficient.

Separately on Jan 4, a new Talent Advancement Programme was launched to give students of Republic Polytechnic’s (RP) School of Hospitality a head start in their careers.

The pilot run, beginning in April, is expected to take in 100 second-year students who are keen to work in events, financial services or hospitality after graduation.

Participants will be attached to one of 16 companies on board the programme, which include Marriott International, InterContinental Hotels Group, OCBC Bank, UOB and Les Amis Group. They will be assigned a mentor and will be able to take up paid work stints, ranging from part-time roles on weekends to full-time positions during semester breaks.

In the final year of their diploma, they will complete a 40-week structured and paid internship at the company, with rotations across two or three roles, and attend a leadership development workshop.

Graduates from the programme may receive offers of bond-free, full-time jobs at a higher position, along with a pay rise of up to 10 per cent from their internship companies, said RP.

The scheme was launched at RP’s open house in Woodlands, which was attended by Dr Maliki Osman, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Education, as well as Foreign Affairs.