Hospitality & Visitor Economy Workforce Development Partnership

A range of employers, education & training providers and wider strategic partners attended the first Hospitality Workforce Development Partnership on February 29th 2024. Held at the Oxford Belfry in Thame, there was a wide-ranging discussion on the purpose and aims of the Local Skills Improvement Plan for the sector, the skills needs it was experiencing and how these might best be met. Discussions ranged from the need to develop the ‘soft’ or employability skills of those looking to enter the sector, to how to create more work experience opportunities and the current development of Skills Bootcamps for upskilling those in the sector and/or those looking to enter it. Employers expressed a desire to influence the content of these bootcamps to try to make sure they met industry needs as closely as possible. There was also a feeling that the sector needed to do more to promote itself and the broad range of opportunities within it, particularly post-COVID. A number of actions were decided upon to take forward including the development of a work experience programme for level 1 learners; linking employers from the group with OxLep to enable input into the bootcamp design, and the running of a communication campaign to promote opportunities in the sector more effectively.