PLANS are afoot for a Tourism Academy in Cape Town that will put South Africa on the map in terms of tourism training for travel industry professionals.

The idea is the brainchild of tourism stalwart, Sheryl Ozinsky. She said it was born out of a need for tourism entrepreneurs to have a better and more holistic business understanding of the tourism industry. This, she said, emerged during a recent Enablis FNB Business Plan competition when the tourism industry entries proved to be among the weakest. “Tourism training at the moment is very basic. We're not training people to be tourism entrepreneurs.” Ozinsky took her idea for a Cape Town-based tourism academy to training specialists, Victoria Clarke and Lisa Gordon-Davis of the Johannesburg-based Academy for the Tourism Industry. They already do countrywide short business-orientated courses for municipalities and tourism SMMEs and have bought into Ozinsky's idea. While the details are not yet in place, the idea is to form a joint venture training company partnered by an institution such as the University of Cape Town's Graduate School of Business. The plan is to offer a full-time and part-time MBA majoring in tourism studies, which would give students a better business understanding of tourism than is currently on offer. Shorter topic-linked courses would also be available, for example on responsible tourism and front-of-house management. The vision is for the venture to be industry led. Students would do research on behalf of the tourism industry, which would then have access to the results. Sheryl said research currently being conducted by tourism authorities was not always relevant. There was not enough intelligence on tourism trends and how to gear up for them, nor was there a database of skills gaps in the tourism industry. The next step was to write a business plan, approach UCT's GSB and to get tourism business people to revise current tourism training syllabuses, said Ozinsky.  “I see it as an accredited institution, possibly with part funding from government. I believe Cape Town, as the premier tourism destination in Africa also needs to be the premier trainer for a sustainable industry.”