Tourism job fairs a hit with Saudis

A large number of Saudis have applied for more than 700 jobs in the travel and tourism sector during an employment fair organized by Takamul, an affiliate of Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities.
A number of travel and tourism companies attended the event offering various jobs to Saudis with good salaries and benefits. Apart from housing and insurance, recruited Saudis will also get special training.
Abdullah Al-Washeel, director general of Takamul, said the companies were offering jobs in the areas of ticketing, reservation, accounting, tour planning and air cargo handling.
“We have deployed a number of officials to work with these companies and the Human Resource Development Fund to conduct interviews with Saudis interested in travel and tourism jobs in various parts of the country,” Al-Washeel said.
The companies will sign contracts with Saudis who passed in the interviews, he said, adding that the training period will be calculated in the social insurance scheme.
The Saudis will get an allowance of SR1,500 during the training period, and a monthly salary of not less than SR4,000. They will be taught the English language and trained in computer science and other skills that would improve their employment chances.
Al-Washeel commended Prince Sultan bin Salman, president of SCTA, for showing his keen interest in nationalizing travel and tourism jobs. He said a similar job fair will be held in Dammam on Tuesday and Wednesday at Carlton Al-Moaibed Hotel, and another at Jeddah Meridien on Saturday and Sunday.
Meanwhile, a meeting of the Steering Committee of the Saudi Travel and Tourism Investment Market (STTIM-2013) recently held a meeting at the SCTA headquarters in Riyadh.
The meeting reviewed preparations for the STTIM-2013, which will be held from March 31 to April 4 at Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Center. “Tourism for all: Partnership for sustainable development” is the event’s theme.
The committee reviewed stages of preparations, which included reserving 80 percent of the space for the exhibition in the center three months before the launch of the event. The space of the STTIM this year has been expanded by 20 percent compared to the last conference.
The events of STTIM-2013 is expected to witness a large participation, nationally and internationally, including participants from public and private organizations that are engaged in tourism investment and development.
STTIM’s four key sessions will focus on topics such as "Saudi tourism competitiveness," "Promising job opportunities in the hotel sector," "Tourist and economic importance of exhibition and conference facilities.” In addition, a number of special workshops will be conducted.
The event includes the distribution of Saudi Tourism Excellence Award. During this ceremony, the most significant companies and organizations in different areas of tourism will be honored.
SCTA will organize tourism trips for the participants to a number of historical and cultural landmarks in Riyadh and special tourist trips to Eshaigir Heritage Village and Safari rides in the desert.
In a related development, the SCTA, represented by the Tourism Information and Research Center (MAS), has recently taken part in a conference titled "Tourism Subaccount and Planning for the Future", which was organized by USAID Jordan in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism and the National Statistics Office of Jordan in Amman.
MAS participated by a working paper on Saudi Arabia's experience in establishing a system of tourism information as well as preparing tourism subaccount in the Kingdom as "Guiding Model" for applying tourism subaccount. The working paper was presented by Monzer Al Ansari, the director general of MAS, which is the statistics arm of SCTA.