By DEAN LAWSON

Growth spurred by potential industrial and tourism development in the state’s west has triggered a call for an investigation into a major hospitality-training centre in the region.

Member for Lowan Emma Kealy said with regional growth came people and with people came a need for service providers, including the hospitality industry.

She said opportunity beckoned for a dedicated school or training centre that existing or prospective institutions in the region could establish.

“If the growth potential many industry insiders and commentators are predicting for our region comes to fruition there will be a need for a fresh look at all sorts of services,” she said.

“And hospitality is one where we could play a major role in providing our own workforce and services.

“We need to be able to provide training opportunities for local people to pursue rewarding careers in hospitality jobs, or to even develop their own small business. It’s about being able to train and work locally, or in other words, to ‘grow our own’.”  

Ms Kealy said the hospitality industry, as well as filling a community need, played a key role as a regional ambassador for a region, city or town.

“If you tick the hospitality box it means you’re ticking all sorts of socio-economic boxes,” she said.

“It is reflective of a region meeting the demands of growth as well as sending a strong message about a community. If you have a great meal, coffee or service, the memory lasts and reputation spreads.” 

Ms Kealy said a training centre would meet needs already being generated by a busy tourism sector, primed to continue growing, and also industrial growth surrounding mining and agricultural prospects.

“The type of skills we’re going to need are front-of-house, back-of-house, good chefs, overall hospitality administrators and so on. There are many aspects to this,” she said.

“We have a training gap in this sector in our region. There are not enough skilled people in the workforce available to cover what we have now, let alone what we will need in the future.” Ms Kealy said a Wimmera training centre could be modelled to get beyond a reliance on transient workers, who briefly brought skills into and took them from the region. 

“This transient workforce brings with it an inherent long-term reliability issue that can present a significant burden for hospitality operators,” she said.

“When you grow your own, chances are that people will make a commitment to establish careers locally.”

Ms Kealy said a centre or school concept might involve a multi-site opportunity, where campuses were in different parts of the region.

“Ideally the concept would also work in with existing restaurants, cafes and pubs where there are greater guarantees for jobs at the end of training,” she said.

“Importantly, the campus or campuses have to be in the region, providing courses that provide people with sound qualifications and in turn opportunities to stay.”

Ms Kealy said the region and project partners could develop the concept through a variety of avenues.

“Perhaps William Angliss Institute, which has a hospitality school in Melbourne, an affiliate or something similar might provide a model. We need to be open to ideas and to just get the discussion going,” she said.

Ms Kealy said she encouraged organisations that believed they could fill a void with a plan that involved establishing a dedicated hospitality-
training centre in the region to get in touch.

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