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INVESTING IN WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
Your Oregon Hospitality Foundation is Hard at Work
Oregon’s Tourism and Hospitality industries have a unique opportunity to reconvene regional and statewide conversations to rebuild our industry’s workforce pipeline. Currently, too many tourism and hospitality employers are still struggling due to a severe shortage of available employees. Without course correction and longer term investments in our youth, the industry will fail to meet the expectations of consumers resulting in diminished returns for local, regional, and state government partners on a stable and growing lodging tax revenue stream made possible by Oregon’s guests staying in overnight accommodations.
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The tourism and hospitality industry continues to lead the way in providing low barrier employment to individuals of all backgrounds while delivering on the promise of essential skills development. It remains true that experience in the tourism and hospitality industry propels individuals to stronger levels of career success as measured by total compensation. Whether you join our industry for a season or a lifetime, the hospitality and tourism industries provide lasting professional benefits you carry with you.
Your Oregon Hospitality Foundation (OHF) professional staff stay focused on priorities defined by the OHF Board of Directors that includes but is not limited to:
• The management and development of culinary and management ProStart programs in Oregon’s high schools
• The rebirth of Tourism and Hospitality Management programming in Oregon’s high schools
• The coordination of industry guest speaking opportunities, job shadows, and experiential field trips in Oregon’s seven tourism regions in partnership with RDMOs
• Collaborative efforts with the Oregon Employment Department and Workforce Oregon to create job/career fairs as desired by industry employers.
Cementing our Place within Regional Workforce Development Boards
One major goal of the Oregon Hospitality Foundation is to secure the industry’s standing as a major sector in each of Oregon’s seven tourism regions through the utilization of data reports compiled by Lightcast. Currently two of Oregon’s nine regional workforce boards identify the tourism and hospitality industries in their work scope. The Oregon Hospitality Foundation plans to embark on the most intentional effort our industry has undertaken to secure our place within each regional workforce board structure through the full utilization of data. Our goal is to have the industry recognized by all nine regional workforce boards in the next two years.
Empowering RDMOs and DMOs
The Oregon Hospitality Foundation has every intention of fully leveraging the partnerships with the Destination Marketing Organizations and Regional Destination Marketing Organizations across Oregon. In addition, local Chambers of Commerce will prove vital to the ability of the Foundation to identify all current industry workforce development efforts while expanding our levels of success within each region.
While Oregon’s tourism and hospitality industries have made headway in reclaiming the narrative around the importance of industry jobs and careers in targeted tourism regions, there is more work to be done. We need industry members like you to remain engaged and help us continue the efforts to develop a strong and sustainable workforce. How can you help? There are plenty of ways you can play a role in helping introduce young and upcoming talent to different paths to success. Visit OregonRLA.org/prostart for more information or contact Courtney Smith at CSmith@OregonRLA.org. And don’t forget about the job fair opportunities at local high schools. You can contact Lupe Arellano at LArellano@OregonRLA.org for more information.