Overview of the Workshop (Photo: TITC)

In 2021, PATA kicked off the Travel Destination Resilience Programme as a solution to face the Covid-19 pandemic, aims to support the rapid, robust and responsible restoration of international tourism in Asia Pacific by building the capacity of tourism destinations towards resilience and sustainability.

As the tourism industry recovers, SMEs (small and medium enterprises) also need to build resilience to better respond to potential crises and future challenges. With this in mind, PATA and Visa have partnered and empowered, equipping SMEs in the tourism sector with financial literacy and digital skills. PATA has developed online learning modules on these two topics, the module source code will soon be open on PATA's online learning platform in 6 languages: English, Khmer, Vietnamese, Bahasa Indonesia, Thai and Chinese.

Mr. Pavnesh Kumar, Head of Sustainability and Social Responsibility Programme, PATA, speaking at the Workshop (Photo: TITC)

In addition to the online modules, PATA offers a two-day training programme in Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. The first day of training will focus on Financial Skills and the second day on Digital Skills.

The workshop aimed to extend the impacts of the Tourism Destination Recovery Programme by focusing on one of the most important stakeholders in destinations: small and medium enterprises. The goal is to empower SMEs in the tourism sector with the knowledge and skills needed to effectively manage their finances and adopt digital technology, to better adapt to the post-Covid-19 tourism era.

VNAT’s Vice Chairman Ha Van Sieu speaking at the Workshop (Photo: TITC)

VNAT’s Vice Chairman Ha Van Sieu stated, the “Tourism Destination Resilience” project is an effective PATA initiative launched at a time when the tourism industry in the region is struggling to recover.

Up to now, after more than a year of restoration, Vietnam's tourism industry has gradually recovered. The collaboration with PATA to organise a training workshop on finance and digital skills for small and medium enterprises has helped businesses improve their capacity to adapt to the new situation. Through two days of seminars with many visual lectures on the latest skills and trends of the financial and technology sectors in tourism, and discussions among all participants, VNAT’s Vice Chairman Ha Van Sieu hopes that enterprises will be able to apply useful information and experiences to their tourism operations and business.

VNAT’s Vice Chairman Ha Van Sieu gifting souvenir to Mr. Pavnesh Kumar (Photo: TITC)

During the two-day workshop, participants were introduced to the basic knowledge of finance for small and medium enterprises in the field of tourism, including budgeting, savings, record keeping and accounting. Accompanied by a group exercise to learn how to budget successfully; the importance of digitising the daily activities of small and medium enterprises in the field of tourism, the concept of smart tourism…

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