SANTO DOMINGO – Meliá Hotels International and the National Institute of Technical and Vocational Training of the Dominican Republic (INFOTEP) signed a collaboration agreement yesterday to create a hospitality and tourism training school. This initiative aims to meet the growing demand for qualified personnel faced by many companies in this constantly developing destination.
The center, operating as a hotel-school , is designed to promote the professional development of Meliá employees, their families, and other members of the community interested in learning industry skills. This will strengthen their employability and career advancement within the company, while also contributing to the development of local talent.
Specifically, the school's objectives are as follows:
• To provide specialized, market-driven training to enhance the skills of employees, their families, and other job seekers in the sector.
• To promote professional development and employment opportunities by offering theoretical and practical programs in key areas of hospitality and tourism.
• To raise service levels and standards by fostering a culture of continuous learning.
• To promote digitalization, including IT training to modernize operational roles.
• To create a pool of local professionals prepared to fill operational positions in Meliá hotels.
To achieve these objectives, the training programs offered at the new school, in addition to essential English language instruction , will focus on the most in-demand professions in the sector, such as:
• Culinary Arts, with a focus on culinary techniques, pastry, food safety, and kitchen management.
• Bar and Restaurant, including customer service, mixology, and establishment management.
• Reception, with training in processes, customer service, reservation management, and communication skills.
• Floors, which will include room maintenance and cleaning, quality standards and resource management.
Resources, Equipment, and Personnel:
The project, slated for completion in the fall of 2025, includes the construction of classrooms and workshops in facilities and spaces provided by Meliá and adapted for use as a hotel-school. This will create synergies with existing facilities, such as kitchen classrooms and guest rooms, also provided by the hotel group.
INFOTEP will be responsible for equipping the training classrooms, food and beverage work areas, and reception area. It will also provide the teaching materials, as well as the necessary hardware and software for digitalization training.
The teaching staff, with experience in hospitality and tourism, will also be provided by INFOTEP, as will the support team of coordinators and administrative personnel who will facilitate the development of the programs. Both institutions will contribute their respective capabilities and experience to ensure the project's success.
For Gabriel Escarrer Jaume, President and CEO of Meliá, “creating the Hotel-School of Hospitality and Tourism in Punta Cana is a dream we’ve had for over 30 years, ever since our founding president, a pioneer in the destination, was captivated by the warmth and hospitality of the Dominican people and by the country’s enormous tourism potential. Since then, our company has been part of the Dominican Republic’s tourism success, and to ensure the long-term sustainability of this success, we wanted to strengthen our commitment by promoting the professional development of tourism workers and, at the same time, ensuring the sustainable creation of more and better jobs.”
The Director General of INFOTEP, Rafael Santos Badía, stated that this project represents a model of training in a real-world work context, the result of collaboration with the productive sector to offer more relevant and opportunity-generating training.
INFOTEP is focused on promoting all types of initiatives to foster continuing education for all hotel and tourism chains in the area and provides support through dual or open training programs, extending this opportunity to the entire tourism sector in the region,” Santos Badía emphasized.
More about the agreement
: To guarantee the quality and results of the project in the medium and long term, Meliá and INFOTEP will maintain strict monitoring and evaluation of the center's programs, using academic indicators such as the completion rate, as well as impact indicators, such as the job placement rate of graduates and the participant satisfaction index.
The evaluation will be periodic and will allow for the application of necessary adjustments to ensure continuous improvement in the quality of training.
