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Omar Robinson to head tourism graduate school

Published:Tuesday | October 22, 2019 | 12:08 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
Omar Robinson, president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association.
Omar Robinson, president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association.

WESTERN BUREAU:

T he Gleaner understands that current president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), Omar Robinson has been tipped to head the soon-to-be established Tourism Graduate School on the Mona campus of The University of the West Indies.

The institution is expected to accept its first cohort of students next year.

Declining to disclose the name of the proposed head of the school, Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett indicated that a prominent personality in the hospitality sector is being considered for the job.

“Normally, you would talk about academic and some guy with a big PhD from some prestigious university, but we said no the person that should head that school is somebody who is a knowledgeable practitioner in the industry with the academic background,” said Bartlett, while addressing a function in Negril last week.

“I hear some people doing PhD and all kinds of things these days, probably working to become a professor of practice in the business. The school will be headed by somebody who is not only qualified academically, but also understands the business,” added Bartlett.

Robinson, who is the general manager of the Round Hill Hotel and Villas, in Hanover, is currently in his final year of a doctorate of education in organisational leadership at Creighton University in the United States.

The Tourism Graduate School is being established to prepare more Jamaicans and regional citizens for top-level jobs locally and abroad.

In July, Bartlett had indicated that the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association will play a pivotal role in curriculum development for the school.

“We are going to come to the JHTA to ask them to work with us in the curriculum development,” Bartlett said at the time.

“We will be looking at what are the areas of research that are going to require ­creating that worker cadre that we need for the future as we discuss the future of work.”