- The Mississippi Tourism Association rolls out free program to make everyone an ambassador.
Imagine you’re a server delivering a pizza order to a table of four in an early night seating, but as you walk across the floor, you notice the pizza toppings are wrong. Your customers have tickets to an evening event, coming up soon. What do you do?
Mississippi Tourism Association’s (MTA) Heart of Hospitality Workforce and Leadership Development Program answers that question and addresses many others in a fun, engaging, and informative way via a free online 7-part series launched in December. The program takes about 30 minutes to complete and is available in English and Spanish. At the end of each section, users answer a few brief questions to advance. Upon completion, participants earn a Certified Hospitality Expert designation.
So far, nearly 400 professionals have completed the program with overwhelmingly positive feedback. “This series showed me how hospitality should be done,” wrote a participant on Jan. 15.
“We’ve worked hard and are very proud of this program,” said MTA executive director Danielle Morgan, TMP. “We’ve gotten great feedback thus far.”
Morgan said the certification program came about as one solution to complex workforce problems in the hospitality sector.
“Much like other industries, tourism is experiencing significant workforce challenges,” said Morgan. “As Mississippi’s fourth-largest industry, it’s important that we attract and retain talent to continue to grow our industry, while also developing the current workforce we have in place and creating an awareness of the amazing career opportunities available in the field of tourism.”
The pandemic exacerbated workforce challenges in the tourism industry, Morgan pointed out.
“It’s no secret that following the pandemic, we’ve seen a decline in service and hospitality in general,” said Morgan. “Tourism was one of the hardest hit industries and it was difficult on our workforce, and the industry lost some great people as a result. Nationally, estimates showed the tourism and hospitality sector was still down as many as a million jobs as recently as last year. We knew that if we never started tackling these issues, we may never see improvement.”
The training program had been offered as a member-only benefit several years ago.
“But we felt if we were going to truly make a difference in our industry, we needed to offer it to anyone willing to spend the time to cultivate their skills,” said Morgan.
To create the video series, MTA partnered with Phil Bruno of Treat ‘Em Right, a production company known for similar programs across the U.S.
“As ‘The Hospitality State,’ we have a really high standard of service to uphold,” said Morgan. “We worked closely with Treat ‘Em Right to craft messaging and curriculum that we felt would meet the needs of our partners in Mississippi and provide relevant and helpful training within a reasonable time frame.”
The series focuses on how to make visitors feel great, exceed expectations by connecting and showing empathy, keep your composure and show patience in awkward situations, and recommend things to do based on who’s asking.
For example, the difference in needs of Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964), Generation X (1965-1980), and Generation Y/Millennials (1981-1996) were discussed when addressing two questions: Do you know a great place to eat? Anything good going on this weekend?
Baby Boomers, often called the “Sandwich Generation” because of caring for parents and children and possibly grandchildren, want good value for their money and to take care of family. Millennials like connectivity, going where locals go, reliance on technology, and being included and involved in a live experience.
In summary, the program was designed to elevate the profile of tourism as a career path and inspire new tourism champions to pursue a career in tourism; provide professionals development opportunities for those working in the industry, including regional training sessions, online learning platforms, and webinars covering industry best practices and trends; expand scholarship programs to enable broader access to professional development opportunities; and expand access to training, including the new 7-part video hospitality course.
Right now, the program boasts 536 active users, 2,858 classes completed, and 385 tourism champions who have now become Certified Hospitality Professionals.
“Our members have been great partners in helping get the word out to their local partners,” said Morgan. “Sister organizations like the Mississippi Hospitality and Restaurant Association and Mississippi Gaming and Hospitality Association have helped us by sharing with their members as well. We’ve reached out to chambers around the state and are also working with some education partners. We even threw in an a couple of iPad giveaways to sweeten the deal and provide extra incentive! An employee with the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center on the Coast won our first giveaway in February. She didn’t even know she was being entered for a chance to win, so that was a happy surprise. We’ll be doing another giveaway in June, so if you complete the certification prior to that, you’ll automatically be entered to win.”
In tandem with the new training program, MTA launched a statewide tourism job bank this month, to make it easier for job seekers and employers to connect.
MTA will host Tourism Day at the Capitol with a legislative reception on March 5. A Spring Summit is scheduled in Greenwood April 10-11. MTA is partnering with the Louisiana Travel Association on a Leadership Forum May 19-20 in New Orleans. For more information, visit www.mstourism.com.
Lynne Jeter
