Principal Investigator for a national tourism workforce and youth development program spanning nine tourism clusters, including the development of a national tourism employment policy framework. Facilitated the establishment of a National Tourism Human Resources Council and a tourism observatory, and supported local universities in field studies for new tourism product development.
Tourism workforce development is unglamorous and structural, which is precisely why it matters. A destination can have world-class assets and still fail its own population if the jobs the sector creates are low-skill, low-wage, and closed to local advancement.
The program covered nine tourism clusters across the country. Alongside the technical assistance to each cluster, the work produced a national tourism employment policy framework — the instrument that makes workforce gains durable past the life of any single donor program.
Institution-building ran in parallel: dialogue with key local stakeholders toward a National Tourism Human Resources Council and a Tourism Observatory, plus technical assistance to Dominican universities undertaking the field studies needed to develop new tourism products.
Related engagements in the same period included delivering a course on assessing and designing tourism workforce programs using the EQUIP3 methodology, a seminar on establishing the National Human Resources Tourism Council, and a three-day course on destination management strategies for 30 members of the nine clusters.