Let's hope there are enough visitors to fill all those new rooms.
MarriotHotel1-600x338 by
exithacan, on Flickr
Ithaca-area hotel boom sparks job training
Program seeks disadvantaged locals for hospitality industry
7:25 PM, Jun 5, 2013
Written by
David Hill
With a new wave of hotel construction and expansion coming to Ithaca and Tompkins County, the city and other organizations are planning a hospitality industry job readiness program to help local people land those jobs and perhaps find a career.
The Ithaca-Tompkins Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates Tompkins County’s room total could rise 20 percent with all planned and under-way hotel projects. The biggest are the 11-story Marriott planned for the east end of The Commons, and a new tower and conference center at the downtown Holiday Inn scheduled to start construction this fall.
A Common Council committee has approved using $86,000 in federal grant funds for the training program, while Tompkins Workforce NY and Tompkins Cortland Community College have committed to participate. At least two hotels and a restaurant have agreed to be sites for on-the-job training.
The program’s target will be 15 people ages 18 to 30 with barriers to employment, which could be lack of a high school diploma, a thin work history, lack of skills or even a police record.
The goal is a foot in the door in an industry with chances for rapid advancement into a long-term career.
“This community could be looking at an additional 162 jobs,” said Marcia Fort, director of the Greater Ithaca Activities Center, which is involved in the program.
The hospitality industry is very good at promoting within, noted Richard Adie, general manager of the Statler Hotel, part of the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, and which will be a training site in the program. “In the last city I worked in, a young man started working for us who didn’t speak any English, and when I left, he managed a department of 75 people,” Adie said.
At the Holiday Inn on Cayuga Street, General Manager Tiffany Gallagher — who entered the business as a housekeeper in high school — said that many of its approximately 100 employees commute long distances because the Tompkins County job market, with an unemployment rate consistently at or near the lowest in the state, is so tight.
“I live in Syracuse. My chief engineer lives in Waterloo. My guest service manager lives in Auburn,” Gallagher said.
Here's the link:
http://www.ithacajournal.com/article...nclick_check=1