CTO and US university discuss cooperation

Articulation agreements with Caribbean tertiary institutions are among matters to be discussed when the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) continues talks with the University of Central Florida Rosen School of Hospitality Management.

CTO’s secretary general, Jean Holder, began discussions with senior officials of where he was invited last month as a “distinguished visiting lecturer.”

The preliminary discussions with Prof. Abraham Pizam, Dean of the Rosen School of Hospitality Management as well as Associate Professor Paul Rompf and Associate Professor Robertico Croes, a former minister of tourism of Aruba, focused on joint programs with CTO. They will also address articulation agreements with Caribbean tertiary institutions and the joint hosting of an international conference dealing with small states which are dependent on the tourism sector, Mr. Holder said.

The University of Central Florida Rosen School of Hospitality Management, which was established in 1983, is one of the fastest growing hospitality/tourism management programmes in the USA, with 900 undergraduate majors and 50 graduate students. All of the undergraduate students work either full time or part time in the Central Florida tourism industry.

The university has already started collaborating with Aruba and is interested in working with the Caribbean at the level of articulation of programmes, Mr. Holder said of the US institution.

“We have a number of community colleges in the region and students of these colleges look for articulation agreements and such an agreement with the University of Central Florida could prove to be very beneficial for the region,” the secretary general stated.

The CTO secretary general said that he anticipated that the CTO would invite Prof. Pizam and his team to the Caribbean early in the New Year to continue the discussions and to get a better understanding of how the university collaborates with the tourism private sector.