USAID- funded project Developing Sustainable Tourism in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) provided online hospitality education to improve the quality and service of the BiH tourism industry.

USAID is “the world's premier international development agency and a catalytic actor driving development results. USAID's work advances U.S. national security and economic prosperity, demonstrates American generosity, and promotes a path to recipient self-reliance and resilience”. ¹  

USAID reached out to Typsy for support with workforce development and training to help improve the quality and services of tourism and hospitality in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Challenge

Typsy was able to support USAID who had four key objectives to develop sustainable tourism activity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. These were:²

Objective 1: Enabling environment with harmonized policies and regulations necessary for noticeable growth in the tourism sector established.

Objective 2: Tourism quality, services, and branding strengthened, resulting in an improved BiH tourism industry.

Objective 3: Tourism service providers, agriculture, and other tourism-related SMEs gain improved access to finance resulting in a substantial increase in investment.

Objective 4: Tourism and local agriculture products gain increased access to regional and global markets.

USAID needed to find some reputable, rapid online training solutions to complement a range of training initiatives taking place across the region to support workforce skills development in hospitality and tourism, and also upskill teams to work in challenging environments. 

As HR Manager, Boris Sasic from Hotel Courtyard by Marriott Sarajevo states, “Employees who are more ready to respond to the challenges in the current state of things are certainly the type of employees who can work better in this market in general… It is a way for employees to upgrade their existing knowledge or learn or master some new skills that can help them get better in the daily activities that their job brings them”.

Solution

USAID sought the assistance of the global online hospitality training provider, Typsy, to provide the workforce in Bosnia and Herzegovinaaccess with online learning. Typsy was used in combination with other learning products, including Flow hospitality where courses were provided to complement each other.

Popular online courses watched on Typsy that helped improve workplace skills included courses covering sustainable food practices, mise-en-place, front desk upselling, and receptionist skills. 

Members were able to watch the Typsy courses with closed captions in the language of choice, as courses are available with translations in more than 20 languages.

Typsy provides scalable solutions to governments, aid agencies, development agencies and associations across the world to support with building skills capacity in their region, create workforce skills development, improve the skills and confidence of their people. In turn, this supports the local hospitality and tourism industry to strengthen its GDP and create a healthier regional economy.

Results

In the first quarter of the project, Turizam launched access to premium courses in hospitality in partnership with reputable online platforms for learning, Typsy and Flow Hospitality. Both platforms are recognized globally for exceptional online learning courses for hospitality and tourism. 

Turizam continues with its promotional efforts, assigning seats and relevant training and gaining feedback from each individual learner to discover more about their experiences. More than 1400 hospitality lessons have now been completed on Typsy by the hospitality and tourism workforce in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

Belmin Bajrovic, Executive Director at Hotel Holiday Sarajevo says, “The courses are very short, clear, categorized, but also very interactive. What I personally liked was that each course had a video presentation.”

Bartender, Darjan Dulcic from Hotel Courtyard by Marriott Sarajevo says, “I was surprised by how accessible it [the courses] is, the quantity of the courses, simplicity, knowledge gained are excellent. Everyone can find something for themselves in these courses and, of course, always learn something new.”

This online learning and workforce development in the hospitality and tourism industries will significantly assist the region in its key objectives to create and improve policies and regulations necessary for noticeable growth in the tourism sector. Plus, this education from Typsy allows growth in tourism quality, services, and branding, resulting in an improved tourism industry in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

_References: 

_{1. https://www.usaid.gov}

_{2. https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00ZMXM.pdf}