Corporate Coach to train 20,000 Tourism Front-Line people

CORPORATE Coach Sdn Bhd expects to train more than 20,000 tourism front-liners this year in line with Visit Malaysia 2007.

Its chief executive officer Dr Michael Heah said since the launch of the training programme by the Tourism Ministry in January, 2,300 people had registered in that month alone.

Dr Michael Heah

“The figures for January were pretty good. If we spread over 12 months, we only need to hit 1,600 people per month.

“The first month is quite encouraging and we expect the pick-up to be greater. We are confident of getting more than 20,000 people,” he told StarBiz.

The Tourism Ministry has appointed Corporate Coach as a strategic partner and allocated RM5mil for the training programmes that would run until year-end.

Heah said the training was aimed at cultivating 10 hospitality values among those working in the service sector, developing their attitude and teaching them various skills.

“We want to inculcate in them how they can play a role in the bigger picture of the tourism industry.

“This is also a launch pad by the ministry to create awareness in customer service and to build such a culture within the industry,” he said.

Under the campaign, three key programmes have been designed for tourism-related front-liners and stakeholders.

“For the front-liners, they can choose to enrol in Mesra Malaysia – a two-day service excellence programme and Tourism English – a two-day English communication programme.

“Those working in the hotels, travel agencies, shopping malls or as cleaners, taxi drivers and even trishaw riders can enrol in both the programmes,” Heah said.

The third programme, called Act Tourism, is a one-day Malaysia Host programme designed for stakeholders.

“This programme is suitable for government servants such as police, immigration and customs officers,” Heah said.

State tourism offices around the country assist Corporate Coach on enquiries and promotion of the training programmes.

In addition to that, Heah said the company was also approaching organisations such as Sunway Group and Genting Group to send their staff for training.

Corporate Coach has also certified 100 trainers to conduct all the three programmes.

“Trainers were trained to use coach training method to disseminate information.They were taught to use coaching skills to train.They learnt how to facilitate, inspire and motivate the people.They have to be able to reinforce knowledge into people.

“Besides that, some organisations also requested our trainers to provide in-house programmes to train their trainers,” Heah said.

Source : STAR
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