Training & Skills

NETSA - The North East Tourism Skills Alliance

Building tourism people. Building tourism businesses.

"The NETSA vision is to raise the regional productivity, skills levels and economic competitiveness of the North East tourism sector through effective partnership alliances."

What is NETSA?

Established in 2003, NETSA was set up to address the lack of co-ordination of the regional tourism skills agenda and the low productivity in tourism businesses in the North East. It is a partnership between the major organisations that work to support this sector.

Key partners are:

• People 1st (Chair)
• One North East
• Business Link
• Learning and Skills Council
• Employer Representative
• Sub Regional Tourism Partnerships
• Job Centre Plus
• Universities for Industry
• Centre of Vocational Excellence - The Tourism Academy
• North East Employer Coalition
• The Northern Cultural Skills Partnership

Regional tourism skills issues

There are a number of major skills issues affecting our the competitiveness and growth of our industry:

• Lack of key skills e.g. customer services, team working and communications
• Lack of higher level skills e.g. management
• Poor basic skills e.g literacy and numeracy
• Difficult recruitment and poor retention
• Lack of investment in training
• Insufficient career pathways - no career 'ladder' to allow staff to progress

One third of staff in the industry have no formal qualifications and only a fifth have a level 3 (equivalent to A Level) or above.

Responding to the challenges

Up-skilling is the key to resolving these issues but training providers need to look at flexible and relevant training, that is cost effective and appealing to the industry. 46% of the tourism sector's establishments provide training leading to a formal qualification, which is much lower than the regional 55% and the national 51% all sector average. A lower proportion of companies compared to regional and national all sector averages with a training plan/budget and this sector has a higher number of vacancies as a % of employment than the regional and national all sector averages.

This lack of investment in the workforce has led to difficult recruitment and poor retention - resulting in a critical shortage of some staff types, for example the severe lack of chefs.

To combat this, the industry needs to show that the sector has opportunities for progress.

NETSA Priorities

As a result, NETSA's priorities all revolve around tackling these issues:

• Addressing skills gaps and shortages in the sector
• Promoting people development and HR support for the sector
• Supporting and disseminating examples of best employment practice
• Being a champion for improved business support
• Helping to improve standards of service for our visitors
• Further developing the sector training culture
• Seeking to redress the image and perceptions of careers in the sector