Ministry of Tourism plans job fair for Omanis

Muscat: The Ministry of Tourism is working to organise a job fair to offer Omanis more opportunities to enter the tourism sector.
The job fair will host companies that are looking to offer positions to Omani jobseekers, and may take place in the final quarter of the current year. The ministry hopes that it will result in more Omanis being hired in tourism and hospitality, following the successes of a recent Tanfeedh initiative.
A statement by the Ministry of Tourism read: “The ministry is happy to invite its partners in the tourism sector, in tourism and hospitality establishments, to offer job opportunities to Omani jobseekers before August 15.
“The ministry will then be able to provide these job opportunities via a proposed job fair during the final quarter of 2019,” the statement added.
An official from the ministry told Times of Oman that firms are responding to the idea of the fair. The invitation is open not just to hotels and hospitality companies, but also to tourism related companies looking to offer jobs to Omanis.
The official said: “Since this advertisement went online recently on our social media accounts, we have seen multiple companies that have shown interest in providing job opportunities and we hope to see more interest.”
The official said, “Even if the company is only slightly related to the tourism sector, this can be their opportunity to collaborate with us on this project and to offer job opportunities to Omanis.
“Furthermore, this is not just for tourism graduates. Jobseekers can use this as a step to get trained and enter the sector.
“We are optimistic about the prospects for this job fair,” the official added, citing that a recent Tanfeedh initiative, carried out in cooperation with the ministry, has led to more than 350 job opportunities being offered to Omanis in 2019 so far, which serves to show that Omanis can successfully forge careers in the tourism and hospitality sector.
According to the official, companies do want to hire Omanis, especially jobseekers with either a high school diploma or a university diploma.
“Hotels in particular tend to look for Omanis to fill positions that range from housekeeping to working as waiters and receptionists. This is similar to some positions in other hospitality and tourism companies.
Sometimes the positions offered can make people nervous about future career opportunities or the fact that they were not trained beforehand, which is why we want to showcase that after a short training course of between 6 to 8 months, people can effectively handle these jobs and then move on to do great things if they work hard enough,” he added.
Many people in Oman have risen through the ranks of hospitality and tourism-related industries.
The official added, “We hope to host people from the private sector at the job fair in order to show these employees that they can start working at an entry-level job and work their way up, increasing their salary as they go. There are also cultural concerns among some Omanis, which is why we want them to know that there are many options for them.”