CCRI program expands to meet demand

For proof the state’s tourism industry is growing, you need look no further than the Community College of Rhode Island, where the travel and tourism program is being expanded to meet the demand for more trained workers.
Come September, the school’s Travel, Tourism, and Hospitality certificate program will open its doors to full-time day students, allowing them to graduate and enter the work force in just nine months.
“The timing is right,” said Heather Singleton, vice president of operations for the Rhode Island Hospitality & Tourism Association, who also teaches classes at CCRI.
“We’ve seen a lot of hotel development in the state of Rhode Island,” she said. “The new convention center opened 15 years ago, and there has been a huge expansion of limited-services hotels. When students finish this program, our managers are ready to hire them.”
The R.I. Tourism Division has the statistics to back those claims: Tourism and hospitality is now the state’s second-largest industry, supporting 70,179 jobs and $5 billion a year in spending. More than 16 million people visit the state each year, flocking to such attractions as the South County beaches, the mansions of Newport, WaterFire nights in Providence, the natural beauty of Block Island, and boating activities in Narragansett Bay.
CCRI has been steadily adding classes to accommodate the industry. The school first offered a travel and tourism curriculum catalog nine years ago, as an evening program for part-time students who planned to become travel agents. At the urging of the state’s hotel association, the program grew in 2006 to include hospitality classes to train hotel employees.
“We added the hospitality program to support the state’s economic development goals,” said Professor Teresa Squizzero, who chairs the school’s Administrative Office Technology Department.
“Up to that point, we had no program in public higher education to support tourism … The record shows there’s a population to support the program, and the state is telling us that travel and tourism is now the second largest engine of Rhode Island’s economy.”
Up to this point students could only enroll part-time, which meant they spent five semesters – two and a half years – a in the classroom. Now, those who choose full-time classes will breeze through in far less time.
“You can start in September and be finished at the end of the spring semester,” Squizzero said.
All students in the program are enrolled in classes in English, math, computers, conference- and-convention planning and destination geography. Those who choose the hospitality component take additional courses in lodging management and human-resources management, while those who opt for the travel component take courses in computer reservation and travel-agency operation.
Those who complete the program can then apply their credits toward a general studies associate’s degree at CCRI. And those who earn an associate’s degree can then transfer to Johnson & Wales University in Providence, where they can receive a bachelor’s degree in travel and hospitality.
CCRI is offering the full-time day program at its campuses in Warwick and Lincoln. The part-time program is also offered at both those locations, and in Providence. The program is not offered at the Newport campus presently, but most likely will be available there sometime in the near future.
CCRI turned to industry experts to help create the program. The hospitality courses were developed by the American Hotel and Lodging Association; the travel courses, by the Institute of Certified Travel Agents.
The only requirement is a high school diploma or a GED. Some students may have to take a placement exam for some classes to be sure they have reached the required academic level in math and English. Those who need help in those areas can enroll in remedial classes at CCRI.
Cost of the full-time program is about $3,000 a year, or $1,500 a semester. “Everyone is concerned about tuition costs,” Squizzero said. “And this is much less expensive than other programs.”
Some enrollees are recent high school graduates, who took hospitality classes in high school. Others have been out of school for years. Many are already working at hotels or travel agencies.
“It’s a real mix – young, old, and in-between,” Squizzero said. “Many are looking for second careers. Some of our graduates are opening online travel agencies and working from home.”
While CCRI launched the program to meet the demand of Rhode Island’s hotel industry, graduates who leave the state need not fret about finding jobs.
A CCRI brochure points out the hospitality and tourism business is booming across the nation, with travelers in the U.S. spending more than $2 billion a day. &#8226

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