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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

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Tourism scholarship applications rise 50% By INDERIA SAUNDERS ~ Guardian Business Reporter ~ Inderia@nasguard.com: Hotel executives have noted a 50 percent increase in applicants for its tourism industry scholarship program — a trend executives call evidence of continuing interest in the devastated sector. It may also point to the inability of Bahamians to pay for training in a field not as lucrative as it was just two years earlier. "We're seeing more students who want to enroll in tourism-related, post-secondary programs," Frank Comito, one of the organizer's of the Bahamas Hotel Association's tourism scholarship program, said last Friday. "The economy is an interruption in a trend line." They're comments centered on apparent interest in its tourism-based training program despite a recent falloff in visitor arrivals. The decline, say some experts, points to the need to diversify the economy outside of a fickle tourism industry. Still, Comito calls the current downturn a minor hurdle in tourism's long-term path. "We've seen additional scholarship applicants and I think part of it reflects the economic situation," he said. "People are looking for ways to save money, but they're also not turning their backs on the industry, recognizing that in the long term that's the strength in our economy and it's not going to go away." Presently, parents and students who had relatively easy access to financing from the banks before the recession are feeling the pinch of a tight economy as banks shrink from lending. The educational loan programs now in place tend to favor those in professional studies like medicine and accounting where the risk of default is assumed to be less. The global phenomenon is one contributing to a change in the way students everywhere select a college, seeking cheaper education options, usually closer to home, or deferring that education. At the College of The Bahamas, a 20 percent increase in applications was recorded for what is expected to be a very economically challenging fall semester for the institution as well as its students. The turn of events represents some 400 more applicants interested in attending COB this year than compared a year ago. It may be the best indication yet of the inability of students and/or their parents to pay the tuition at many schools abroad during these economically trying times. It may also help explain the growing number of scholarship applications. Still, it has afforded Comito and his tourism-related partners an opportunity. "We will continue to be very much engaged in tourism as [the mainstay in] our economy because it's the natural God-given strength we have," he said. "Our challenge is to continue to grow it, develop the people and take advantage of all opportunities. "We're going to be stronger at the end of this." Monday, June 29, 2009