Government aids SARS-stricken tourism industry

The Council of Labor Affairs yes-terday introduced a new training project to assist the nation's tourism industry to upgrade its employees' professional skills, encouraging the industry to prepare for the next trade boom, which it surmises may occur after the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) ends.

Some 49,000 workers in the local tourism sector are expected to benefit from the project.

Kuo Fong-yu (郭芳煜), director of the council's Employment and Vocation Training Administration, yesterday announced the NT$50 million project at the press conference, following tourism officials' pressing of the government.

"The most difficult time for business is the best time for on-the-job training.

We hope that the project will assist the industry's professionals in improving their professional skills so that they might be ready for the next business boom," Kuo said.

The project will provide a total of 60 free classes to some 3,000 tourism professionals around the country.

Travel agents and hotels willing to provide the on-the job training courses to their employees would be entitled to receive subsidies, totalling 80 percent of their expenditures for the courses, from the CLA.

Liu Gui-fen (劉桂芬), representative of the Caesar Park Hotel in Kenteng, appreciated the government's assistance, saying the project would help the hotel to provide more sophisticated training courses to more employees.

Tseng Sheng-hai (曾盛海), chairman of the Taipei Association of Travel Agents, who has pressed the government to assist local travel agents, commented that the council's project would help the industry avoid a high unemployment rate during the epidemic.

Business for the nation's tourism industry has sharply declined, falling as much as 80 to 90 percent since last month, when the first case of SARS was confirmed in Taiwan.

According to a poll released earlier this month, about 90 percent of Taiwanese citizens expressed hesitation about taking international trips in the coming six months because of the SARS outbreak.

Tourism officials have pressed the government to help the sector weather the epidemic, through measures such as cutting the 5 percent value-added taxes, delaying collection of last year's corporate income tax, and providing subsidies to the sectors' workers.

The idea of providing subsidies to the sectors' workers, however, is still under discussion in the Cabinet's cross-ministry committee.

The CLA plans to promote the project to travel agents and hotels by holding seven seminars around the nation starting next week.