Swiss Institute amongst global finalists at World Tourism Forum 2017

The Swiss Institute team at the World Tourism Forum: Heiko Rosenbohm, Dr. Rohith Delikhan and William Delikhan

The World Tourism Forum is the leading interactive platform in the industry, where CEOs, ministers, academia, finance, start-ups, the next generation and young talents gather to address the future challenges of the travel, tourism and hospitality industry with the aim of shaping a more sustainable future.

This year, on 4 May, 500 participants from 75 countries including several major players in the tourism industry and government leaders met to discuss the challenges and new trends in global tourism and travel at the World Tourism Forum (WTF) 2017, held in Lucerne, Switzerland. The world faces a doubling of travellers by 2030. 

The main focus of the forum was concentrated on the innovation, talents and the sustainable development of the industry. A key item on the agenda was selecting and awarding the most innovative and creative business ideas in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry presented by startups. Vying for this prestigious award and gaining the honour of being selected amongst the final four out of 170 nominees, was the Sri Lankan start up Swiss Institute (www.swissinstitute.org), founded by a group of Swiss and Sri Lankan entrepreneurs and partnered with the Swiss Hospitality School Lucerne (SHL) and the Swiss Banking Advisory Academy BBZ in St. Gallen. Swiss Institute has now graduated to become an innovation member of the World Tourism Forum and will participate at future forum events to contribute towards shaping the industry.

With an international vision and ambition to create a significant impact in the country, Swiss Institute demonstrated at the forum, their key missions and projects undertaken to reposition the hospitality and tourism industry in Sri Lanka and create genuine economic benefit for all participants in tourism. These comprised of working with employers and students to develop the right skills in being more efficient and customer-centric, giving students an affordable quality education and a portable and prestigious Swiss certification along with a job guarantee, as well as offering training in best practices for the tourism and hospitality industry in Sri Lanka. 

Speaking of their achievement in gaining this recognition, Swiss Institute CEO Dr. Rohith Delikhan stated, “Innovation and technologies are transforming the world’s tourism sector, but Sri Lanka has lagged far behind in this area. Our purpose therefore is to work on creating new avenues for tourism growth and close this gap in the industry in the country. We intend to bethe number one training and development partner for the industry in Sri Lanka. We currently offer certificate and diploma level programs in Food and Beverages, Reception, House Keeping, Kitchen Services, Butler and Concierge, Supervisory skills excellence and relationship management.”

He further explained that after commencing operations in June 2016, Swiss Institute held a Train the Trainer Program with Swiss Hospitality School Lucerne in July 2016, had community and regional capacity building programs for hotels in November 2016 and February 2017, conducted hotel and restaurant audit projects in October and December 2016, established industry partnership with key hotel chains, and is expanding into 12 key tourism districts in Sri Lanka this year. “

“Our end-to-end approach will change the people development in hospitality: we select the right students and develop their capabilities according to their strengths. We select the right hotels and analyze their needs for human resources individually. With our pragmatic education programs, we are able to guarantee each student a job with our diploma and the industry suitable candidates. One key element: Our mobile training activities in rural communities in Sri Lanka and digital inclusion of communities in tourism with our online platform. And on top of that we ensure career development of our alumni and assist entrepreneurs build businesses in the hospitality related space,” explains Dr. Delilkhan.

With future plans in launching a project to set up the first hotel for women by women in Sri Lanka, Swiss Institute with their international expertise and futuristic vision, is set to be the game changer required by the tourism and hospitality industry in the country.