Speech by Desmond Tan, NTUC Deputy Secretary-General at NTUC LearningHub Tourism Event on 16 November 2023

SPEECH BY MR DESMOND TAN, NTUC DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL, AT TOURISM CAREERS HUB – ‘RESKILLING FOR THE NEW TOURISM ECONOMY’ EVENT, ON 16 NOVEMBER 2023, 9AM AT SENTOSA GOLF CLUB

Mr Jeremy Ong, CEO, NTUC LearningHub
Mr Mark Chua, Executive Chairman, Tourism Management Institute of Singapore
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Introduction

A very good morning to everyone.

I must really thank all of you for helping us tide through Covid-19. It seemed like so long ago when we went through the pandemic. But, I know that the tourism sector is probably one of the casualty of the pandemic. Hence, I just want to put on record my deepest appreciation for the captains of this industry - for your resilience, for your adaptability and for your innovation, enabling us to come out stronger from Covid-19. And I think you deserve a big round of applause.

The tourism sector is important to Singapore. It contributes to about 4% of our GDP and we have near 19 million annual visitors coming to Singapore before the pandemic. In his earlier speech, Jeremy Ong, CEO, NTUC LearningHub, shared that we have passed 6.3 million visitors last year, surpassing our target. This is a good sign, but we are some way away before we can reach pre-pandemic level. This year, we are projecting to receive 12-14 million visitors.

If you have travelled through the airport, you would know that tourism is recovering, MICE activities are recovering, transportation and accommodation are all recovering. So, this is commendable.

Key Value Proposition for Tourism Careers Hub and Company Training Committee

But we need to recognise that this didn’t come easy. Firstly, a lot of hard work went into the perseverance and the resilience (of our businesses and workers). I want to thank the employers, businesses and associations, for working together to cut costs and save jobs. I want to thank the unions for standing by with our workers to help them reskill, redeploy them so that we can keep their jobs and sustain the industry post-recovery.

Secondly, about the Tourism Careers Hub (TCH). I was told that my predecessor, NTUC’s former Deputy Secretary-General, Senior Minister of State, Mr Chee Hong Tat, initiated the TCH as a platform to aid the industry to bounce back to the impact by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is an end-to-end, single point of contact services and capability building for this industry, for both the workers and businesses.

I want to give some account of how TCH has helped the industry in the last two years. Going forward, we can be encouraged that more can be done to help this industry.

The Tourism Careers Hub (TCH) was established in January 2022. For the workers point-of-view, it allows two things. First, it allows a dedicated platform for jobs tailored to the tourism industry, so that jobseekers can have a dedicated and customised place to find good jobs. It also provides training prescription and support to allow workers to know what training and skills they would require to excel and go into this sector. TCH has really supported many of our workers and jobseekers to find jobs. There is also career advice provided by NTUC’s e2i.

For the businesses, many of you from the associations have been asking how the TCH help businesses in their business transformation. Through the Company Training Committee (CTC) that was set up in 2019, it provides another component of enterprise transformation, other than job placement and training. CTC, is a part of NTUC’s initiative to support businesses in their enterprise and business transformation.

Essentially, when you come onboard and sign the MOU with NTUC, we will journey with you to help your business to embark on transformation, redesign jobs and upskill workers. Ultimately, we want to make sure that our workers get the recognition and reward that they worked hard for.

For example, Park Royal on Beach Road, is one of the hotels that came onboard CTC initiative and they are also a unionised company. They implemented some projects including using AI for their business operations and inventory. Because of their transformation and the CTC Grant that they applied for to support the company, our workers also benefited from new skills upgrading and wages increases, which is in addition to their annual increment. CTC is really a win-win for both businesses and workers, where it allows businesses to transform, tap on CTC Grant provided by NTUC through the Government, and workers can benefit from better outcome.

These are two examples of how TCH has helped businesses and workers from job placement and facilitation, and business transformation.

NTUC LHUB Appointed as the Training Partner

Today, we are happy to complete the triangle – first, jobs facilitation, second, business transformation and the third key part is on training.
I am glad that NTUC LearningHub has partnered TMIS today as a milestone event to roll-out more customised training for this industry to help new workers enter the sector with confidence, as well as for existing workers to look at the new skillsets, including technology, digitalisation, sustainability and service excellence.

These are important thrusts going forward for the industry and I am very happy to be here to witness this occasion.

Closing

Once again, thank you for inviting me and thank you for your hard work. I wish TMIS and NTUC LearningHub a successful collaboration. More importantly, I want to congratulate all of you for riding through a difficult crisis. I am sure that if we continue to collaborate and work hard together, we can make Singapore into a more vibrant hub and a more inspiring destination as STB envisions.

Thank you.